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Watertown Metro Area

Located in the northern part of New York State near the St. Lawrence River, Watertown is one of New York’s smallest metropolitan areas, with a population of 117,000. The area has seen little population or employment growth in recent decades.

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Watertown Metro Area Economic Indicators

Economic and Demographic Trends

	Population 2020	Pop growth 2020, 10-year change (%)	GDP 2020, billions ($)	Job growth 2021, 5-year change (%)	Median household income 2020 ($)	Median home price 2020 ($)	Pop share age 25+ with BA+ 2020 (%)
Watertown	117,000	0.4	7	-6.8	59,000	140,000	23.3
North Country*	305,000	-3.8	14	-4.4	56,000	121,000	24.6
Syracuse*	662,000	-0.1	42	-5.1	63,000	150,000	32.2
New York State	20,201,000	4.2	1,725	-4.1	72,600	350,000	39.4
United States	331,449,000	7.4	20,894	1.2	67,000	250,000	35.1

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis; IPUMS USA-University of Minnesota. Data retrieved through data.census.gov, Moody's Economy.com, or directly from source.

*Neighboring Metros

The New York Fed publishes indicators, trends, research and analysis on our Second District. Explore the content below to learn more.

Business Leaders Survey: Service Sector Activity Contracts

December 17, 2024

Business activity declined slightly in the New York-Northern New Jersey region’s service sector in December. The survey’s headline business activity index fell five points to -5.2. Learn more in our monthly regional service sector survey on current and future business trends.

Empire State Manufacturing Survey: Manufacturing Activity Holds Steady

December 16, 2024

Business activity held steady in New York State’s manufacturing sector in December. The headline general business conditions index moved down to 0.2. Learn more in our monthly survey of New York manufacturers as they assess current conditions and the future outlook.

Early Benchmarked Employment Data

December 6, 2024

Our economists provide early benchmarks of initial monthly employment releases throughout the year and make the benchmarked data about the New York Fed region available to the public on a monthly basis.

Regional Employment Trends

December 6, 2024

These interactive charts illustrate payroll employment trends for more than 20 geographies in the Second District, from the state level down to metropolitan areas.

Beige Book: Economic Activity in the District Expanded Slightly

December 5, 2024

Each Federal Reserve Bank gathers anecdotal information on current economic conditions in its District through reports from Bank directors and interviews with businesses, community organizations, economists, market experts, and other sources.

Quarterly Household Debt & Credit Report (with state information)

November 13, 2024

The report provides unique data and insight into the credit conditions of U.S. consumers and provides a quarterly snapshot of household trends in borrowing and indebtedness, including data about mortgages, student loans, credit cards, auto loans and delinquencies.

Regional Equitable Growth Indicators (EGIs)

October 8, 2024

The regional EGIs present disparities in inflation, real and nominal earnings, employment, and real and nominal spending across the New York-New Jersey metro area, as well as all other counties in New York state.

Full Regional Report | Regional Data

Technician using a tablet in a car factory

AI and the Labor Market: Will Firms Hire, Fire, or Retrain?

BY Jaison R. Abel, Richard Deitz, Natalia Emanuel, and Benjamin Hyman | September 4, 2024

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to dramatically change the labor market and possibly the nature of work itself. The results of the authors’ August regional business surveys find most firms that expected to use AI in the next six months plan to retrain their workforces, with far fewer reporting adjustments to planned headcounts.

Mapping Home Price Changes

September 2024

Explore year-over-year changes in home prices both regionally and nationally, using this dynamic map — updated monthly with new home price index data on 1,200 U.S. counties since 2003.

Supply Chain Disruptions Have Eased, But Remain a Concern

BY Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz | May 20, 2024

Supply chain disruptions became a major headache for businesses in the aftermath of the pandemic and were a key contributor to the surge in inflation. The authors present new measures in supply availability from the New York Fed’s Business Leaders Survey, Empire State Manufacturing Survey, and Global Supply Chain Pressure Index. They find that supply availability had generally been improving since early 2023, but improvement has stalled over the past couple of months.

Supplemental Survey Report: Regional Supply Chain Insights

May 20, 2024

In response to special questions focused on supply chain disruptions, about a third of service firms and 48 percent of manufacturing firms reported at least some difficulty obtaining supplies they needed this month. Learn more in our supplemental survey report.

Slow Road to Recovery: U.S.V.I. Sees Signs of Resilience

Many Places Still Have Not Recovered from the Pandemic Recession

May 7, 2024

The onset of the pandemic resulted in one of the sharpest and deepest economic downturns in U.S. history. The authors examine the uneven geographic recovery from the pandemic recession, noting that much of the New York-Northern New Jersey region is still way behind.

Andy Haughwout’s Briefing on U.S. and Regional Economic Conditions

April 18, 2024

In a presentation at the 2024 New York Fed Regional and Community Banking Conference, Andy discussed economic conditions, including employment, inflation, business activity, housing, and commercial real estate.

small business workers creating fabric products in shop

Businesses See Inflationary Pressures Moderating

February 21, 2024

Shortly after the recovery from the pandemic recession began, the U.S. economy entered a period of high inflation as surging demand, severe supply disruptions, and worker shortages combined to create large imbalances and inflationary pressures in the economy. Have these pressures moderated for local businesses in the New York–Northern New Jersey region? The New York Fed’s February business surveys asked firms about increases in their costs and prices.

The State of Low-Income America: Credit Access & Housing

BY Claire Kramer-Mills, Ambika Nair, Belicia Rodriguez, and Joelle Scally | JANUARY 18, 2024

As part of our mission to make the U.S. economy stronger and the financial system more stable for all segments of society, the New York Fed issues periodic reports on credit access for low-income Americans. The 2024 report examines low-income households’ access to credit, ability to repay loans, and use of mortgage refinancing through Q3 of 2023.

Small Business Recovery after Natural Disasters

Banks versus Hurricanes

November 20, 2023

Puerto Rico’s location in the Caribbean leaves it highly exposed to all manner of severe weather. Hurricane Maria, which struck the island on September 17, 2017, was a worst case in some respects as it struck just two weeks after Hurricane Irma flooded the island. Even so, the island’s economy and banks recovered surprisingly quickly. This post discusses the various protections—including homeowners’ insurance, federal aid, and mortgage guarantees—that helped buttress the island’s economy and banks.

Flood-Prone Basement Housing in New York City and the Impact to Low-and-Moderate Income Renters

November 17, 2023

Hurricane Ida, which struck New York in early September 2021, exposed the region’s vulnerability to extreme rainfall and inland flooding. The storm inflicted extensive damage to the housing stock, particularly low-lying units. This post introduces new data to estimate with greater precision the flood risk to basement apartments in New York City. The authors show that these risks potentially impact roughly 10 percent of low- and moderate-income individuals, immigrants, and racial and ethnic minorities.

Small Business Recovery after Natural Disasters in the Fed’s Second District

November 16, 2023

This is the second of the two-part series on how natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, droughts, and winter storms affect small businesses in the Federal Reserve’s Second District. While the previous post focused on the impact of such disasters using data from the Small Business Credit Survey for the period 2021-22, this post focuses on the aftermath of such disasters, and examines disparities in the ability of firms to reopen their businesses and access disaster relief.

Inaccurate flood zones in the Fed’s Second District

How Do Natural Disasters Affect Small Business Owners in the Fed’s Second District?

November 15, 2023

Data from the Federal Reserve’s Small Business Credit Survey shed light on how small businesses in the Second District are impacted by natural disasters (such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, droughts, and winter storms). The author finds that increasing shares of small business firms in the region sustain losses from natural disasters, with minority-owned firms suffering losses at a disproportionately higher rate than white-owned firms.

Flood Risk and Firm Location Decisions in the Fed’s Second District

November 14, 2023

The intensity, duration, and frequency of flooding have increased over the past few decades. As the frequency of flood events continues to increase, the number of people, buildings, and agriculture exposed to flood risk is only likely to grow. This post focuses on the distribution of flood risk within the Federal Reserve's Second District and examines its effect on establishment location decisions over the last two decades.

How Do Banks Lend in Inaccurate Flood Zones in the Fed’s Second District?

November 13, 2023

This post examines the impact of flood risk, particularly on bank lending in the Federal Reserve’s Second District. Using data on the accuracy of flood maps, the authors examine banks’ lending practices within “very inaccurate” and “inaccurately” mapped areas. A map is considered “very inaccurate” If a property faces significant flooding damage (highest damage quartile) but is not mapped into a flood zone, and “inaccurate” If properties in an area face moderate damage but are insufficiently mapped.

Potential Flood Map Inaccuracies in the Fed’s Second District

November 10, 2023

The National Flood Insurance Program flood maps, which designate flood-prone areas, are updated periodically through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and community efforts. Even so, many of these maps are outdated. Given that climate-related risks vary geographically, it is crucial to produce accurate maps for such risks, like flooding. This post uses detailed data on the flood risk faced by individual dwellings as well as digitized FEMA flood maps to assess the accuracy of flood mapping in the Federal Reserve’s Second District.

Transition Risks in the Fed’s Second District and the Nation

November 09, 2023

Climate change may pose two types of risk to the economy—from policies and consumer preferences as the energy system transitions to a lower dependence on carbon (transition risks) or from damages stemming from the direct impacts of climate change (physical risks). This post complements a previous blog in the series that studies the Second District’s exposure to physical risk by considering how transition risks affect different parts of the District, and how they differentially affect the area relative to the nation.

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