The face of New York City’s economic growth over the past decade is not a banker or software engineer. It is a home health aide in Brooklyn.
She works in healthcare and social assistance, the industry that added more jobs than any other: 351,000 since 2015, more than half of them in Brooklyn. She earns about $40,000 a year, enough to afford roughly $1,000 a month in rent. The median city rent is $3,223.
New York City’s economy is growing. But growth no longer guarantees prosperity. That is the central finding of a new report from the Association for a Better New York and the New York City Employment and Training Coalition.
The city reached a record 4.65 million jobs in 2025, 3.6% above its pre-pandemic peak. Yet too many new jobs do not pay enough to support life here. That is the challenge facing incoming city Economic Development Corp. President and CEO Tony Shorris: translating economic growth into meaningful progress for New Yorkers.
The strain is not evenly shared. Black New Yorkers are the only group whose unemployment rate rose over the past decade. The Bronx has an unemployment rate of 8.2%, compared with 5.4% citywide. And the divide is especially stark for workers without bachelor’s degrees; nearly two-thirds of city occupations do not require a four-year degree, but their median wage is almost $60,000 lower than for occupations that do.
Nearly 1.4 million New Yorkers work in occupations where wages have lost ground to inflation since 2019. A single parent with one child now needs roughly $113,000 to meet basic expenses, yet few fast-growing occupations approach that threshold.
When ABNY and NYCETC brought this issue to leaders reshaping work across the city, a shared strategy emerged on how to address it.
First, every major investment in housing, transit, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, life sciences, and public infrastructure must also be a workforce strategy. Talent pipelines, apprenticeships, employer partnerships, and career pathways should be built into economic development projects from the beginning, not added after investments are made. Housing must remain central to ensure that workers can remain in the city whose economy depends on them.
Second, New York must treat skills as infrastructure.
The city needs a more coordinated workforce system, stronger employer engagement, clearer pathways into growing industries, and sustained investment in the organizations that help workers navigate them. Success should be measured not simply by enrollment or program completion, but by employment, wages, retention, and career advancement.
Third, lifelong learning must become the norm. Artificial intelligence is already changing jobs across the economy. New Yorkers need opportunities to reskill and upskill throughout their careers, and AI literacy should be embedded in schools, colleges, workforce programs, and employer training. The companies driving this transformation should also help finance and design the training ecosystem their technologies require.
EDC has the tools to connect growth, investment, employers, and workers. Under Shorris’ leadership, it should ensure that workforce development is included in every major economic initiative and that community organizations, labor, educators, and employers have a meaningful role in shaping implementation.
New York has always succeeded by bringing people together to solve challenges no institution can address alone. Now we must build an economy measured not only by how many jobs it creates, but by whether those jobs allow New Yorkers to build stable lives.
Pfohman is CEO of the Association for a Better New York (ABNY). Morris is CEO of the New York City Employment & Training Coalition (NYCETC).