City Comptroller Brad Lander met with Errol Louis at Inside City Hall Monday night to discuss his office’s first monthly economic outlook for 2023.
As the threat of a recession looms amid high inflation, war in Ukraine and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, things are getting a little better in the city, Lander said.
“Clearly the signs of inflation have abated,” Lander said. “They’re still up there, but we’ve seen significant reductions even on the consumer side. Gas prices have come down, consumer prices have come down, even asking rents – which are of course well above where they are – that was the first month we’ve seen asking rents fall.”
According to Lander, people are also traveling more. The number of people arriving at city airports from outside the US is above pre-pandemic levels for the first time. Lander suspects that the increase in travel is due to a mix of increased tourism and business.
“International air traffic coming into New York is above pandemic levels for the first time and that’s obviously a really good sign,” Lander said.
However, more New Yorkers are in shelters than ever before. Lander says that as of Jan. 2, 66,831 people, including many asylum seekers, were in city shelters and that many of those people are staying in hotels.
Lander insisted that the city needed help from the government and urged urban migrants to obtain work permits.
“We need help from the federal government. We need help from the state government,” Lander said. “Really, what would help the most would be a work permit. A lot of these people want to work.”
Looking ahead, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 2023 state of the state speech is Tuesday at 1 p.m. and Lander hopes Hochul will focus on affordable housing.
“We need more housing vouchers and protection against evictions,” Lander said. “And we need more social and affordable housing in addition to more market-driven prices.”
During Monday’s interview, Lander also discussed the city’s nurse strikes at two major private hospitals, layoffs in the US tech industry and Mayor Eric Adams’ first year in office.
“Big issues like housing affordability are thorny issues that will take more than a year to resolve,” Lander said.
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