ALBANY COUNTY — This week, in his report on the governor’s budget for 2023-24, the state’s comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, begins by saying, “New Yorkers have consistently demonstrated their resilience during the pandemic. The State’s economic recovery is reflected in growing employment and wages, as well as the $8.7 billion current-year surplus estimated by the Division of the Budget.”

However, he goes on to say “significant headwinds” will challenge ongoing growth with inflation above historic levels chief among them.

“Continued Federal Reserve Board actions to raise interest rates in response may dampen national and local economic prospects, which, if not carefully managed, risks causing a recession,” says DiNapoli’s report.

He also notes that federal relief aid that has been “instrumental to balancing the budget in the past two years” will be depleted by the end of 2024-25. While the governor’s budget proposal totals $227 billion, the Division of the Budget projects shortfalls in revenues and increases in spending, particularly in Medicaid and school aid, over the financial plan period.

As a result, the comptroller concludes, projected outyear gaps have grown to $5.7 billion in 2024-25, $9.0 billion in 2025-26, and $7.5 billion in 2026-27.

His assessment identifies several economic, revenue, and spending risks and outlines concerns related to transparency and oversight — such as debt proposals and billions of dollars being excluded from competitive bidding and oversight requirements.

Jobs

On Tuesday, the state’s labor department released preliminary local area unemployment rates for January 2023, during which the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment increased from 4.1 percent to 4.2 percent.

At the same time, New York state’s labor force, seasonally adjusted, increased by 6,200. As a result, the labor force participation rate increased from 60.4 percent in December 2022 to 60.5 percent in January 2023.

For the Albany-Schenectady-Troy area, the unemployment rate went from 3.5 percent in January 2022 to 3.6 percent this past January.

In January 2022, the region had 15,900 unemployed while in January 2023, the region had 16,300 unemployed.

For Albany County itself, the unemployment rate for January 2023 was 3.5 percent.

At the same time, according to the labor department, the number of private-sector jobs in New York state increased by 23,600, or 0.3 percent, to 8,238,000 in January 2023.

The number of private sector jobs in the United States also increased by 0.3 percent in January 2023.

New York state’s private-sector jobs, not seasonally adjusted, increased by 333,100, or 4.3 percent, over the year in January 2023 while the number of private sector jobs in the U.S. increased by 3.6 percent over the year.

    New York State's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased from 4.1% to 4.2% in January 2023.

From January 2022 to January 2023, the biggest percentage increase in jobs was in the leisure and hospitality sector at 10.8 percent for a net of 82,400. This was followed by education and health services at 5.5 percent for a net of 113,100.

The government sector had the smallest percentage of increase at 0.6 percent for a net of 8,700.

Albany County COVID numbers

This week, Albany County’s 157th of dealing with COVID, and coming close to its third year — the first confirmed case in the county was on March 20, 2020 — numbers are continuing in the right direction with fewer new cases documented. The same is true statewide and nationwide.

Two new COVID-related deaths in Albany County were reported this week by the governor’s office; both of them were reported on March 14.

The county’s dashboard, as of Tuesday, March 14, showed a death toll of 626: 301 males and 325 females.

Also this week, Albany County’s designation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has remained at a “medium” community level of COVID-19 after being labeled “high” seven weeks ago.

The county had been designated “medium” by the CDC for the four weeks prior to the “high” designation, which followed two weeks of a “low” designation. That was preceded by four weeks of being labeled “medium” after 13 weeks of being labeled “high.”

All of the counties in New York state are once again designated as either “low” or “medium,” as they had been for two weeks before last week when four counties in the Finger Lakes region had been labeled “high.”

Three of the counties surrounding Albany — Greene, Columbia, and Rensselaer — are designated “medium” while three others — Schohrie, Schenectady, and Saratoga — are designated “low.”

Nationwide, similar to the last four weeks, only 2 percent of counties are labeled “high” while 13 percent are “medium,” and the great majority — 85 percent — are labeled “low.”

The weekly metrics the CDC used to determine the current “medium” level for Albany County are:

— Albany County now has a case rate of about 55 per 100,000 of population, a drop from last week’s 60, a steady decrease to half of 120 seven weeks ago;

— For the important COVID hospital admission rate, Albany County has a rate of 12 per 100,000, down from 22.2 seven weeks ago; and

— Albany County now has 5.6 percent of its staffed hospital beds filled with COVID patients, down slightly from 5.9 last week, hovering near the same mark for about a month, although down from the percentages for the previous seven weeks, which ranged from 6 to 8.

As of March 14, according to Albany County’s COVID dashboard, 30 patients were hospitalized with COVID, down slightly from 31 patients last week, and down from 39 the week before, near the same mark for a month but down from 42 six weeks ago, 43 seven weeks ago, and 46 eight weeks ago.

About 35 percent of the Capital Region residents hospitalized with COVID this week were not admitted because of having the virus, according to a chart from the governor’s office.

In New York state, according to the health department’s most recent figures, for samples collected between Feb. 12 and 25, the Omicron variant again made up close to 100 percent of new cases.

The Omicron sublineage XBB.1.5 dominates at 89 percent, up from 39 percent six weeks ago; 3 percent were XBB while another 3 percent were BQ.1.1. The other sublineages made up less than 2 percent of new cases.

Nationwide, according to the CDC, from March 3 to 11, the XBB.1.5 sublineage made up 90 percent of new cases, steadily rising from 49 percent seven weeks ago, followed by BQ.1.1 at 5 percent and XBB at 2 percent.

Meanwhile, in our region, which includes New York, New Jersey, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, 96 percent of new cases are caused by the XBB.1.5 sublineage of Omicron; the percentage had grown steadily to 99 last week but has declined slightly while XBB.1.5.1 has gained ground to make up 2.3 percent of new cases.

Although figures on infection rates are no longer reliable since tracing and tracking systems have been disbanded, the state dashboard shows that cases in Albany County as well as statewide have continued to decline in recent weeks.

Ten weeks ago, rates for both the state and county had jumped after having leveled off in November following two months of climbing.

Albany County, as a seven-day average, has 6.5 cases per 100,000 of population, down from 8.7 last week , which has been in a more or less steady decline from 12.4 ten weeks ago.

Numbers hovered between 8 and 11 before that, which was a fairly steady decrease from 21.8 cases per 100,000 twenty-six weeks ago.

This compares with 5.7n cases per 100,000 statewide, down from rates over the last month-and-a-half in the twenties following a fairly steady decrease from 30.03 per 100,000 of population five months ago.

The lowest rates are in places that once were hotspots: New York City has the lowest rate this week at 4.2 cases per 100,000 of population, down from 9.5 three weeks ago.

The highest count is still in the North Country at 10.4 per 100,000 of population, which was 12.8 last week and had been around 15 for several weeks before that.

The numbers for vaccination in Albany County have hardly budged for several months. The state’s dashboard now reports on these two categories:

— People with a primary series, for those who have completed the recommended initial series of a given COVID-19 vaccine product — two doses of Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or one dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine; and

— People who are up to date, for those who have completed all COVID-19 vaccinations, including the bivalent booster, as appropriate per age and clinical recommendations.

As of Tuesday, 21.6 percent percent of Albany County residents were up to date on vaccines, a gradual increase from 17.9 thirteen weeks ago, as opposed to the 61.5 percent of eligible residents who had received booster shots, as reported in prior weeks.

At the same time, 76.3 percent of county residents have completed a primary series, nearly the same as the last several weeks.

This compares with 76.5 percent of New Yorkers statewide completing a vaccination series, and 14.0 percent being up to date with vaccinations, up from 10.6 thirteen weeks ago.

New Yorkers are being encouraged by the state’s health department to get bivalent COVID-19 vaccine boosters from Pfizer-BioNTech for anyone age 5 or older and from Moderna for those 6 or older.

To schedule an appointment for a booster, New Yorkers are to contact their local pharmacy, county health department, or healthcare provider; visit vaccines.gov; text their ZIP code to 438829, or call 1-800-232-0233 to find nearby locations.