NYC Resident Workers: Industries, Occupations and Earnings
Public-use microdata from the article “What people do in New York”
Not synthetic. Disclosure-protected survey records published by a government statistical agency, cut to the people or households we looked at.
- Records
- Public-use microdata
- Place
- New York City
- Version
- 1.4,
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0; code MIT
- Built for
- What people do in New York (version 1.4)
New York City has more payroll jobs than ever, a record 4.9 million in July 2026, and health care is its largest sector. The census says what the 4.2 million residents who work actually do and how that changed since 1990: far less factory and clerical work, far more professional and care work, and median annual earnings that rose surprisingly little for a workforce so transformed.
The article's own data file, microdata cut to what it analyses, and the script that computes every figure in it. Computed from: Census 1990 and 2000 5% PUMS and ACS 2010 and 2015–2024 one-year PUMS (residents of the five boroughs; workers with a city workplace from the study-area files); BLS Current Employment Statistics for New York city, January 1990 to August 2026; CPS basic monthly files June 2024 to August 2026.
Files
| File | Rows | Size | What it holds |
|---|---|---|---|
| data.csv | 71,165 | 7.9 MB | The microdata the article's figures are computed from. |
| analysis.py | 51 KB | The script that computes every figure in the article (MIT). |
Columns
data.csv: The data (22 columns)
row_id, year, weight, resident_of_nyc, borough, works_in_nyc, works_in_manhattan, workplace_borough, works_from_home, at_work_in_survey_week, industry_group, occupation_group, class_of_worker, age, sex, race_ethnicity, foreign_born, bachelors_or_higher_25plus, usual_hours, worked_50_52_weeks, full_time_full_year, earnings_2024_dollars. The article and its script
define each one.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Current Employment Statistics, New York city, all employees by supersector, not seasonally adjusted, Monthly series January 1990 to August 2026, retrieved from the public API on 26 September 2026 and unchanged when checked on 4 October 2026; August 2026 is preliminary until the September figures are published
- U.S. Census Bureau — Sex by Industry (C24030) and Sex by Occupation (C24010) for the civilian employed population 16 years and over, and Employment Status (B23025), New York city, ACS 2024 1-year, ACS 2024 1-year tables, released 11 September 2025; the 1-year PUMS followed on 4 December 2025
- U.S. Census Bureau — ACS 2010 and 2015–2024 1-Year PUMS, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut state files (the metro study area), with replicate weights, ACS 2010 and 2015–2024 1-year releases
- U.S. Census Bureau — Census 2000 5-Percent Public Use Microdata Sample, New York, 2000 census, 5% sample
- U.S. Census Bureau — 1990 Census of Population and Housing, Public Use Microdata Sample A (5%), New York, 1990 census, 5% sample
- U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics — Current Population Survey basic monthly public-use files, June 2024 to August 2026, monthly files to August 2026; no October 2025 file
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Consumer Price Index, New York-Newark-Jersey City, all items, Annual averages 1989 to 2025 and January–August 2026, retrieved from the public API
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — R-CPI-U-RS, the consumer price research series using current methods, U.S. city average, all items, Annual averages 1978 to 2025, file retrieved 26 September 2026
- U.S. Census Bureau — Technical Paper 65, The Relationship Between the 1990 Census and Census 2000 Industry and Occupation Classification Systems (Scopp, 2003), October 2003; the paper and its industry crosswalk table retrieved 26 September 2026
- U.S. Census Bureau — Cartographic Boundary File, 2020 Public Use Microdata Areas, New York, 1:500,000, GENZ2020 release; the 2020 PUMA definitions used by the ACS from the 2022 files
Licence and credit
The survey records are the publishing agency's, redistributed as published; the columns we derived are CC BY 4.0; the script is MIT. Public-use microdata are disclosure-protected records derived from survey responses, published by the issuing agency so that no respondent can be identified; synthetic records are generated by SparkyData and correspond to no real person, household or address. Neither may be used to identify anyone.
Credit it as:
SparkyData (2026). NYC Resident Workers: Industries, Occupations and Earnings (version 1.4). Data CC BY 4.0.
https://sparkydata.dev/data/nyc-resident-workers-industries-and-earningsThe article gives the charts, the uncertainty of each comparison and a changelog. Corrections and questions: sparkytech.dev@gmail.com, or see corrections.