NY Post
Four of New York City’s five boroughs have lost a higher percentage of residents since COVID than any of the 40 largest counties in the country, a startling new review of US Census data shows.
Topping the list is The Bronx — with a 7.2% drop in the past three years, according to the analysis of county-level population estimates.
“It’s been good for us — we get more work — but it’s sad,” said Manny Gomez, a 42-year-old Bronx resident and employee of Morgan and Brothers Manhattan, a storage and moving company, in the borough’s Mount Eden section.
Rent is way higher. It’s going up. People move out of state because their apartments of 10, 20 years get too expensive,” Gomez told The Post on Monday.
“The little guy is getting screwed over. It’s not worth it to stay in the city.”
The Bronx had 1,356,476 residents last year, according to the Census data — down from the 1,461,151 recorded in 2020.
Brooklyn’s Kings County came in at No. 2, suffering a 5.8% drop, and Queens County followed closely behind with a 5.7% decline in residents, according to the review carried out by ResiClub, a news and research outlet that covers the US housing market.
Manhattan’s New York County ranked fourth among the 40 largest counties in the US losing residents, with its population declining 4.8% since 2020, the analysis showed.
“It’s getting harder to live in New York,” said the owner of a U-Haul franchise in Sunnyside, Queens, who only gave her first name, Renna, to The Post — echoing what New Yorkers have been saying for several years.
The cost of living in the city — whether it be soaring prices, rampant crime or the general rat race — is just too damn high for many people, while work-from-home options have made it easier to move out to cheaper, more spacious regions.
And the exodus is apparently continuing.