RAB Source Entry #1 – Richard G. Bordes

PART 1: MLA Citation

Haag, Matthew, and Patrick Mcgeehan. “The ‘Double Whammy’ That Is Slowing New York City’s Job Growth.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Dec. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/14/nyregion/nyc-economy-jobless.html. 

<0o0o0o0>

Graphic Organizer

Main Idea: How the Corona Virus pandemic has affected New York City’s job economy compared to the rest of the country?

Supporting Detail 1: The unemployment rate in the US has plummeted to 4.2 percent, close to where it stood before the pandemic. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in New York City is at 9.4, more than double that of the entire country.

Supporting Detail 2: After gaining 350,000 jobs in the last months of 2020, employment has slowed considerably this year, with just 187,000 jobs added since March.

Supporting Detail 3: From the start of the pandemic, no other large American city has been hit as hard as New York or has struggled as much to replenish its labor force. Nearly a million people lost their jobs in the early months of the pandemic, and thousands of businesses closed.

PART 2: SUMMARY

In the article, “The ‘Double Whammy’ That Is Slowing New York City’s Job Growth”,  Matthew Haag and Patrick McGeehan use statistics along with testimonies from various New Yorkers to covey the struggles of NYC’s job economy due to the Covid-19 pandemic compared to the rest of the country. Such struggles involve New York City’s unemployment rate of 9.4, which is more than double the unemployment rate of the rest of the country. Ever since the pandemic began, NYC’s workforce has been the hardest out of any American city as nearly a million citizens have lost their jobs and a multitude of businesses have shut down during the early months of the pandemic. Even though this problem is being fixed, with NYC’s job economy regaining over 300K jobs, the employment process has been slowed down considerably with only 187K of those jobs being filled. In addition, the rise of the Omicron variant of Covid threatens to weaken this already slow recovery process. 

Part 3A Reflection

The article “The ‘Double Whammy’ That Is Slowing New York City’s Job Growth” by Matthew Haag and Patrick McGeehan helps me understand the true depth of Covid 19’s effect on New York City’s job economy, with many New Yorkers losing their jobs and even their businesses. In the article James Parrott even states that “It certainly looks to me like we’re going to have a much slower, much more drawn-out recovery,” a sentiment that I can agree with. The road to recovery for NYC’s job economy is very slow, and vulnerable to a total collapse depending on what happens in the future. The fact that the article supports this with the fact that “only 187,000 out of 350,000 new jobs have been filled” is sad since it barely covers the massive population of New Yorkers that are unemployed. It makes my complaints about not being able to find a job seem small compared to the wider scale of the thousands of New Yorkers who lost their jobs. But I also feel kind of glad that others understand my struggle. If I could meet the authors of this article or any of the notable people mentioned in this article, I’d thank them for giving me a wider perspective of just how badly NYC’s job economy has suffered. This article matches well within the range of my proposal and it was worth the long, timely search for it.

Part 3B Rhetorical Analysis

The genre of this article is a factual news report and is targeted toward New Yorkers who have their own struggle with the job economy because of Covid-19. This article’s purpose is to inform them of the state of NYC’s job economy. The writing style is factual, the tone is objective and the audience is the general reading. It’s a reliable source because the NYT has a worldwide readership and is staffed by award-winning writers. They’ve also won over 150 awards, further supporting their reliability.

PART 4: NOTABLE QUOTABLES

“Commuters and tourists consume a lot of the same stuff. They consume, in a certain sense, the vibrancy of New York City.” (Andrew Rein; President of The Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit watchdog group)

“Wall Street is having a banner year, and they did really well last year. That has helped prop up the city’s income tax revenues and business tax revenues.” (Ana Champeny; Deputy Research Director at the Citizens Budget Commission.)

“It’s going to take a long time for my industry to come back,” (Patrick Casey; Board Member of the Guides Association of New York City)

“It certainly looks to me like we’re going to have a much slower, much more drawn-out recovery,” (James Parrott; An Economist with The Center for New York City Affairs.)“We have people waiting in line and anxious to go back to work. They’re having difficulty finding full-time work.” (Rich Maroko; President of The Hotel and Gaming Trades Council)