Our economy has been hit hard over the past year, and News 12 continues to track it all.

In our new segment, Deep Dive, News 12 is partnering with Investopedia, the world's leading source of financial content on the web.

This week, News 12's Kristie Reeter and Caleb Silver look at dining trends in New York. Caleb Silver is the editor-in-chief of Investopedia.

New York state's trends are not looking very good, according to Silver. The state is seeing reservations down some 34% from August of 2019 - two years ago - way before the pandemic, those trends have been sort of worsening.

"Throughout the year, and especially in the last couple of months as we have more indoor dining restrictions, more mask mandates, and we are also in the middle of August so the trend is heading in the wrong direction for New York," says Silver.

When talking about about the broader impacts of how restaurants have been impacted in terms of what it means for businesses and jobs, Silver said restaurants are essentially small businesses.

"The restaurant and hospitality industry generated some $51 billion in revenue for New York state in 2019, obviously a lot of that has been lost in the last year and a half. It employed 963,000 people, but one in eight of those jobs were lost in 2020 amid the pandemic," he says.

And while we have seen some restaurants try to restart, Silver says the trends are not in New York's favor right now.