On Tuesday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani trumpeted in a tweet that New York City’s storefront vacancies had hit a post-pandemic low.
Turns out he popped the champagne cork too soon.
City Comptroller Mark Levine released a report on Thursday that put the numbers in context — and showed the city lagging the nation.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the local retail vacancy rate stood at 10.5%.
As of April, it was 11% — about 15,700 empty storefronts.
The national vacancy rate was 4.08% in 2024, below the 2019 rate of 4.37%.
In other words, New York’s storefronts still haven’t recovered since COVID, while the rest of the country bounced back years ago.
Worse, in many city neighborhoods at least 60% of storefronts vacant in early 2026 had already been empty for at least nine months — a sign of sluggish growth.
The city’s labor market is also hurting, having added only about 13,000 private-sector jobs in 2025, down from 95,000 in 2024.
The city’s unemployment rate was 5.6% in April, up by 0.7% in a year — higher than the state’s 4.6% unemployment and the nation’s 4.3%.
Darkened storefronts represent wasted opportunities for those who could be reaching for the American Dream.
Yet Mamdani still doesn’t have a comprehensive economic development strategy.
In April, he appointed a new “Mom-and-Pop Czar” to help small businesses start, stay open and grow.
The instinct is right, but hiring a bureaucrat to fight the bureaucracy is the wrong approach.
Meanwhile, nearly half a year into his term Mamdani still hasn’t named a head of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the city’s vehicle for attracting private investment and creating jobs.
Past mayors had little trouble filling the role, because its mandate was simple: grow the economy by getting businesses to locate here and expand.
It’s far more complicated for Mamdani, whose leftist base has long decried EDC for being too pro-industry, especially when it offers tax incentives to lure businesses in.
A leader of the city’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter recently pushed for an EDC “that isn’t afraid to fight business leaders to get the best results for the working class.”
It’s like putting out a welcome mat that reads: “Go away.”
Julie Su, Mamdani’s deputy mayor for economic justice, suggests that businesses will be attracted if the city provides “affordable and reliable child care; reliable transit; things like groceries.”
Translation: more government-funded programs.
But if that’s what it took to make an economy hum, the city’s ever-increasing budget would have seen to it already.
Like it or not, businesses exist to make profits.
They need a healthy local market and a cost-effective regulatory environment.
A growing population makes for steady demand, encouraging long-term investments.
New York City’s population, however, is shrinking: From 2020 to 2025, Gotham lost nearly a quarter-million residents.
With the median Manhattan rent now at about $5,100 and Brooklyn’s at $4,100, New Yorkers have less disposable income — bad news for shopkeepers.
On top of that, the city’s tax and regulatory environment makes doing business extraordinarily difficult and expensive.
Startup costs in the city run double the national baseline, according to a May report by the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce.
One-third of new storefront operators wait at least six months to open and must navigate a thicket of up to 15 agencies.
Only 4% of the Chamber’s surveyed storefront owners rated the government effective at supporting them; 68% rated it ineffective.
As businesses struggle to maintain profitability, Mamdani wants to impose onerous regulations like a $30 minimum wage by 2030.
Not only would this make businesses hire fewer workers, it would encourage automation: AI and robotics make replacing people easier and cheaper than ever.
The mayor’s repeated calls to tax the highest-earning individuals and corporations won’t spur job creation.
Yet no one more than Mamdani should want to see the private economy grow.
Someone has to pay for city government’s exorbitant spending growth and the mayor’s expensive campaign promises.
Mamdani could reverse population loss and restore confidence in the local economy by deregulating housing production, so that the private sector can build more without government subsidies.
But rather than clear the way for private building, his housing plan mostly doubles down on government-backed housing.
Keeping spending under check and socking more money away in the rainy-day fund would assure business owners that they won’t be stuck holding the bag when times get tough.
Eliminating costly and often unnecessary steps to start and operate businesses would also tell entrepreneurs that New York wants them here.
The proof of success isn’t another czar or program — it’s New Yorkers with the confidence to sign a lease and offer the best of themselves to their fellow residents and the world.
John Ketcham is director of cities and a legal policy fellow at Manhattan Institute.
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