Upstate is back, Gov. Andrew Cuomo claims at every opportunity, showering his economic-development czar Howard Zemsky with praise for nothing less than a miracle. Unfortunately, as the governor prepares to run for re-election, his upstate revival has stalled and the worst performance is in the place he has spent the most money—Buffalo.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has crunched the numbers in a report issued earlier this month. Since early in 2016, the report said, upstate job growth has been a "paltry 0.3%," which is half the rate of the previous four years. Buffalo, where the governor has poured $1 billion into the economy, saw virtually no increase. Rochester, the second-largest upstate economy, has lost jobs over the past year and a half.