In January, Mayor Bloomberg stood in the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and declared, “Spring — and a time of renewal — is on its way.” Figures out yesterday from the New York State Department of Labor paint a somewhat different picture. Unemployment in New York City is at its highest point in almost five years, 8.6%. That’s up from 8.5% in December 2002, and up from 7.3% in January of 2002. Given the recent institution of his 18.5% property tax increase, and the further tax increases he has planned, the mayor might want to consider connecting the dots.

When the mayor was pushing for his property tax hike, a fiscal policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute, E.J. McMahon, estimated that it would cost the city 62,000 jobs. He made his estimate based on the State Tax Analysis Modeling Program, which models interaction between economic and tax variables using historical data. It seems that the mayor’s own Office of Management and Budget may have reached similar conclusions to Mr. McMahon’s: Between the mayor’s November financial plan and the January adjustment — i.e., before and after the property tax increase — the administration has revised downward its estimate of the number of jobs in New York City in 2003 by 63,000. With the tax paid in semi-annual installments, the city has seen a loss of nearly 40,000 jobs since a year ago. The change to 8.6% from 8.5% unemployment is “seasonally adjusted.” If you just look at raw numbers, the statistics are even more stark: 100,000 fewer jobs in the city in January than in December. While much of that is the result of retailers laying off Santa Claus and the elves, it’s certainly possible that some of it is the effect of the property tax bills that arrived in December.

With the damage from Mr. Bloomberg’s property tax hike becoming apparent, one would hope that the mayor might be finished raising taxes. That, alas, would be delusional. Mr. Bloomberg has been consistent on the point that he is looking for $1 billion to come from “reform” of the personal income tax. The mayor has publicly assumed that this money would come from a reinstitution — and massive increase — of the commuter tax. Since this idea is a non-starter at Albany, however, New Yorkers would be prudent to assume the worst. That $1 billion will likely have to come from somewhere, since the mayor refuses to significantly cut services or waste. It might just come in the form of an income tax increase, and it might just send our unemployment rate even higher. Better for Mr. Bloomberg to adopt some of the tax-cutting enthusiasm of his predecessor, and send the unemployment rate dropping.