(Bloomberg) -- Real wages are falling in the Big Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).
With the exception of Manhattan, real median wages in 2017 were lower than that of 2000 in all boroughs, according to the New York City Independent Budget Office. The sharpest decline was in Queens where real median wages for private-sector jobs declined 14.2% over the past 18 years or roughly 0.9% every year. The median wage in Manhattan were 9.3% higher. Overall, median inflation-adjusted wages for private-sector workers were down 2% from 2000 to 2017.
If the current expansion is isolated, wages only grew in Staten Island where they registered growth of only 0.1% on an annual basis since 2009, and in Manhattan which saw a median increase of 7.4%.
Wages in Manhattan were more than twice as high as other boroughs. The median wage in Manhattan in 2017 was $84,435, while the median of other the four boroughs was $34,798. The lowest median wage in 2017 was in Brooklyn at $30,454, a drop of $3,000 from the 2000 median wage.
While wages have not fared well, employment levels have. From 2000 through 2017, New York City private-sector employment jumped by 20% -- an addition of more than 650,000 private-sector jobs. Manhattan dominates employment, with nearly 2.3 million of the cities 3.8 million jobs in 2017. From 2000, the greatest increase in the number of jobs was in Brooklyn.