What Does New York City Have to Lose By Banning Fur?
Posted on September 27 2020
What Does New York City Have to Lose By Banning Fur?
On March 28th, Bill No. 1476 was introduced to ban fur throughout New York City. Based on an economic impact study completed on April 26, 2019, a fur ban will have devastating consequences for not only the historic fur industry, which employs thousands of working and middle class New Yorkers, but also for the City’s entire fashion economy - harming everything from small businesses to leading international brands, big department stores and major retailers.
Immediate Job Loss Impacting NYC’s Working and Middle Class
- New York City would lose 7,500 jobs related to the fur industry, with 1,110 of those being workers with no other training and an average age over 49
- Within 1 year of passage, 150 small businesses would be forced to shut down. These are all small, family- and immigrant-owned businesses that have been operating, on average, for over 47 years in New York One member of the industry said, “Chances are if you are in [the fur industry], you were born into it.”
- Over half of these small businesses are concentrated in the Fur District, one of the last fashion manufacturing centers left in New York These small businesses have
fought for decades to keep good-paying jobs in New York City, overcoming recessions, commercial rent increases, and pressures to outsource overseas.
- Within 1 year of passage, big department stores and major retailers will be forced to let employees go, harming middle and working class New Yorkers who are
already burdened with rising residential rents and costs of living.
Immediate Tax Revenue Losses & Increased Deficits
- If passed, New York City’s tax revenue would drop $76 million in the first year, and $620 million in 10 years
- This year, the initial federal budget cut $76 million from the New York City Housing Authority, and even more cuts were Without the fur industry’s revenue, the deficits faced by necessary and critical City programs that serve New Yorkers will continue to grow.
BY THE NUMBERS
$850M Loss
$7 Billion Loss
$76M Tax Loss
7,500 Jobs
150 Businesses
150 small, family- and immigrant-owned businesses would close in the first year
According to the NYCEDC, “fashion manufacturing jobs has gone down 61% since 2011,” and the Garment District Alliance reported that "from March 2017 to March 2018, New York City's fashion industry shrunk by an additional 7.7%, a loss of approximately 1,000 jobs." And as of August 2018, the AP estimated that only 5,000 garment manufacturing workers remained.
A fur ban would be catastrophic to New York City - eliminating a historic manufacturing community, along with thousands of jobs for New Yorkers who’ve never made another living and millions of tax revenue that fund critical government programs that help New Yorkers.
If passed, the fur ban would be another sad sign of the City’s rapid gentrification, destroying small businesses who contributed to New York for generations while ignoring the needs of its own residents.