Creating a more equitable economy will require bold action by the city. But the private sector will also need to step up. This study provides a snapshot of six innovative employer-led initiatives to expand access to good jobs--with enormous potential for replication among other companies in New York. [The Gantcher Family Foundation provided…

To succeed in creating a more equitable economy in New York City, policymakers will need to help boost economic outcomes for the nearly 300,000 working-age New Yorkers living in public housing. Although new investments in workforce training and education should be part of the solution, there is also an enormous untapped opportunity to make…

Few New Yorkers face a tougher road to stable employment today than those returning from a period of incarceration. Indeed, the unemployment rate among people who have been to prison is almost five times higher than among the general population. Given these long odds, formerly incarcerated New Yorkers are searching for other ways to generate…

New York City's fast-growing tech sector has become the city's most consistent source of new middle- and high-wage jobs. But even as demand for tech talent surges, New Yorkers of color remain strikingly underrepresented among the city's tech workforce. As city leaders consider options for expanding access to the well-paying jobs powering the…

This data brief is intended to shed light on the scope and scale of the disparities in college attainment across New York City. The analysis is conducted on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2008 and 2018 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. More specifically, it looks at educational attainment for working-age (age 25-64) residents of the…

This report is the latest in a series of studies by the Center for an Urban Future focused on building a more inclusive economy in New York. It is informed by interviews with over 50 experts in college persistence and basic needs access--including staff at community-based organizations (CBOs), faculty and administrators at the City University of…

New York City (NYC) ended 2020 with roughly 600,000 fewer jobs than it had when the COVID-19 pandemic began. But even amid the economic carnage of the past year, some employers in New York have been hiring. While new jobs are being created in fields from warehousing and delivery to healthcare, technology (tech) positions are growing the fastest.…

In many of the New York City neighborhoods hit hardest by the pandemic, libraries are among the only trusted resources for immigrants, teens, older adults, and those on the wrong side of the digital divide. For example, in 64 percent of the city's neighborhoods, branch libraries are the sole public hub for career services and support for…

Part of our ongoing research on how to create a more inclusive economy in NYC, this data brief shows that CUNY has made crucial progress in producing STEM grads. Tapping this talent pool, and making further gains in the years ahead, will be key to closing the opportunity gap for tech careers. [Funding for this report was provided by BNY Mellon.]

Faced with major economic disruption, New Yorkers are likely to turn to higher education. But while the Excelsior Scholarship program is growing, City University of New York (CUNY) students and community college students statewide continue to be underserved. Despite its well-intentioned purpose, New York State's flagship free tuition program--the…

The fast-growing tech sector has become NYC's most reliable source of new well-paying jobs. But while tech companies are hungry for talent and increasingly eager to hire locally, too few of the good jobs in tech are going to New Yorkers from low-income communities. This report points the way forward, providing the first-ever comprehensive…

In March 2014, the Center for an Urban Future documented an array of challenges and vulnerabilities resulting from the New York City's aging infrastructure in their "Caution Ahead" report (see ED555648). And it identified a minimum investment of $47.3 billion over the next five years to bring the city's core infrastructure to a state of…

New York City is home to nearly 100 apprenticeship programs today, but the vast majority of them--93 percent--are in the building trades and manufacturing. As the demand for tech talent surges, the city has an enormous opportunity to leverage this powerful training model to expand pathways into technology careers. Arguably the most powerful tool…

This report analyzes data from the U.S. Department of Education on the outcomes of New York's federal student loan borrowers who entered repayment in 2012, covering the period from 2012 to 2016. This data brief--the first comprehensive analysis of five-year student loan outcomes in New York--reveals that the student loan default rate in New York…

There are a number of reasons why apprenticeships have been relatively slow to get off the ground in New York--from an overly cumbersome state process for registering new apprenticeship programs to a paucity of employers that have embraced this model, particularly outside of the building trades. But as several other states have shown in recent…