Results: Did Barclays Center Make a Difference?

Above: Barclays Center, via barclayscenter.com

Kings County Alone

Above: Year by year change in Kings County, where Barclays Stadium is located

All of the data points indicate that Kings County is more economically impacted than NY state as a whole. When factoring the initial conditions, Kings County had mixed results during the study period. Relative to NY state, unemployment and poverty both increased. The proportion of people using SNAP also increased. The one positive note is that median household income went up at a substantially faster rate than the state average. As compared to a mean, median numbers are less influenced by outliers. That means a team of highly-paid NBA players and executives is unlikely to have moved this metric very much by themselves.

The Immediate Vicinity

Above: Year by year change for the immediate area around Barclays Center

The immediate area around Barclays Center performed much the same as the state. In this area, it is notable that median household incomes remained close to the state average, while poverty and unemployment were significantly higher than average. This likely reflects a higher cost of living in relation to wages in the target area. Poverty rates were significantly higher in New York County, a direct neighbor to Barclays Center. SNAP usage and unemployment were highest in Bronx County, which is slightly further removed.

The Wider Metro Area

Above: The overall change for NY's Metro Area

Above: Year by year change for NY's Metro Area

When including the larger metro area, overall performance becomes very similar to the state averages. Although there are gaps of varying size for each metric, they all follow the state trends. The largest disparity is in household income, where Suffolk, Nassau, Westchester, and Rockland counties carry the metro area. Due to their locations, this is not reasonably attributable to Barclays Stadium.

Statewide change

Above: The overall change for NY State
Note: Hamilton County is an outlier for this dataset, so a special discussion is dedicated to it below.

Unfortunately, the percentage of New Yorkers in poverty increased every year of the study. At the same time, income went up, and unemployment went down, which presents a conflicting picture of what’s really happening. There are two simple explanations. The first is that economic growth is largely benefitting the upper and/or middle class instead of the poor. The second is that job growth has primarily been in low-wage jobs that don’t enable the working poor to improve their situations. This second explanation is lent further credibility by the simultaneous increase in SNAP use and decrease in unemployment. The government is subsidizing the working poor, because working does not afford them a standard of living above the poverty threshold.

What about Hamilton County?

Hamilton County is an outlier in two major ways. Firstly, the poverty rate decreased a whopping 8% during the study period. Secondly, the unemployment rate went up by over 4%. Compared to 2011, only six counties had a higher unemployment rate in 2017. The next-highest increase was Yates County, where unemployment ticked up by 0.55% over the same period. So, what happened?

One possible explanation is that Hamilton County underwent a construction boom [1]). From 2013 to 2016, Hamilton’s construction and extraction sector nearly doubled in size. As an industry, construction is known for having a cyclical pattern of expansion and contraction [2]. It is also noteworthy that Hamilton County is the least populous in the state, and as such, the most subject to variance.

[1] Datausa.io on Hamilton County
[2] The Boom Bust cycle in construction