Community Op-Ed: New York City is Back – With More Jobs Than Ever

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Less than two years ago, I was sworn in as the 110^th mayor of New York City. Our city was still reeling from the devastation of a global pandemic. Commercial neighborhoods and office buildings were deserted. Headlines questioned the future of New York City.

But I knew then what every New Yorker has always known: this city would be back.

And right now, that comeback is official: We have regained the nearly one million private sector jobs that were lost during COVID-19, and New York City has more total jobs than EVER before in our city’s history, totaling 4,709,400 million jobs. Not just private sector jobs. Total jobs. And, more than 280,500 of those jobs were created since the beginning of this administration.

This is more than just a recovery, and I am proud to say we got there ahead of schedule. Before we took office, experts were projecting the city wouldn’t regain pre-pandemic job levels until 2025, but this is the “Get Stuff Done” administration. And we got it done in 22 months.

Our plan was straightforward: Protect public safety, invest in public spaces, and support working people, or as we have been calling it, the “Triangle Offense.”

As I have said for so long, public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity.

It is what I campaigned on, what I was elected to do, and what we have delivered for New Yorkers.

That is why we took immediate action and invested $171 million in our Subway Safety Plan; took action on gun violence, car theft, and retail crime; and boosted enforcement of quality of life and criminal offenses alike.

This simple equation — jobs are up, crime is down, and every day we are delivering for working people — is the foundation of everything else we want to accomplish moving forward.

And the results speak for themselves: Riders are back on our transit system heading back to work, and New Yorkers are safer — and feel safer — and it makes all the difference.

We are embarking on the most ambitious housing effort in generations, investing in sustainability and resiliency projects across the five broughs, and making transformative changes in how we keep our city clean.

We are also delivering billions into the pockets of working people across the city, but when it comes to lifting up working people, we are going to go even further.

Too many people have been left out of this recovery. Black unemployment is too high. Our wealth gap is too wide. Equity remains a serious issue in communities of color across the board.

We must build a fairer, more inclusive economy. And we are going to start with a “Working People’s Tour” of the five boroughs — one that highlights the New Yorkers powering our recovery, introduces new economic solutions, and allows us to hear directly from those who are still lacking access to good jobs. We will create new interventions to help boost growth and build on-ramps to opportunity across the five boroughs because all New Yorkers must share in our city’s prosperity, no matter what line of work they are in or what borough they hail from.

New York City has a history of coming back stronger no matter how tough things get. Going forward, we are going to make sure that every New Yorker can share in our city’s legendary opportunity and prosperity as well.