One of the unfortunate offshoots of this, the Greatest Depression, is that it has really hit New York hard, PR-wise. The term “Wall Street” has become synonymous with “greedy fat cats who ruined the country,” and a clear line has been drawn between that and “Main Street,” which is where all nice, normal people think that they live. (They don’t, actually. They live on Elm Street down the block from the crazy lady with the toilet on her lawn.) Now, we get it. Wall Street was the problem, in the fundamental sense. But it’s not everyone on Wall Street’s fault. There are half a dozen shawarma carts that had absolutely nothing to do with it. And the choir at Trinity Church only had a small hand in it. But in the rest of the country’s metonymic eyes, Wall Street is New York, and New York is to blame for the economy.
This resentment wasn’t helped by the fact that the rate of employment here (where, admittedly, many of the banks and other corporations that you love to hate are headquartered) has been outperforming the national rate. But no more! According to some great news* out today, New York’s unemployment is 8.1 percent, up from 6.9 percent last month. That’s the highest month-to-month jump on record, and it brings us to exactly the same atmospheric rate of unemployment as the rest of the country. See, everyone? No need to resent us! Our lives suck just as much as everybody else’s!
City Unemployment Rate Reaches 8.1% [City Room/NYT]
*News not actually great.
