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New Yorkers' Wallets Shrink for First Time in 70 Years

By Nicole Bode | October 6, 2010 11:51am | Updated on October 6, 2010 1:41pm
Wall Street rebounded from 2008 profit losses, boosting incomes in the city even as the rest of New York saw historic income losses.
Wall Street rebounded from 2008 profit losses, boosting incomes in the city even as the rest of New York saw historic income losses.
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AP Photo/Richard Drew

By Nicole Bode

DNAinfo Senior Editor

MANHATTAN — New Yorkers saw their personal incomes fall last year for the first in 70 years, according to a new report from the state comptroller’s office.

Personal income dropped 3.1 per cent in 2009 from 2008, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office found in a report released Tuesday.

The recession may not have hit New York as hard as the rest of the nation, but it doubled the state’s unemployment rate to 8.9 percent and slashed 367,000 jobs from the area, DiNapoli found.

Area foreclosures also skyrocketed 30 percent from 2007 to 2009, as home prices plummeted, according to the report.

Things were slightly more promising for New York City, which saw 90,000 new jobs added in the past year. Wall Street rebounded from its $54 billion losses in 2007 and 2008 to post $61.4 billion profits in 2009 and $10.1 billion profits in 2010, the report found.

The city was partly shielded from the recession by an uptick in tourism, as the number of tourists visiting NYC in 2010 is estimated to reach 47.5 million people — up 4.2 percent from 2009, DiNapoli’s office found.