The Empire Center for New York State Policy debuts a new website that reveals the story behind the state's major economic trends. Our Steve Ference reports on the numbers that show whether businesses are really moving in or moving out, and how New York ranks in employment growth.

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ALBANY, N.Y. -- Elizabeth Lynam, Citizens Budget Commission Deputy Research Director, said, "I think it's important to understand that there are problems with small businesses in New York State."

For New York business analysts and policy experts, stories of the state's business climate have become gospel over the years - with little hard data to back them up. Until now.

J. Scott Moody, Empire Center for NYS Economist, said, "You can go all the way down to 1,000 of industries, and look at a regional, or county-wide basis."

The Empire Center for New York State Policy, creating a new website - EnterprisingNY.com - full of data gleaned from business survey organizations, providing insight into job trends between 1993 - coming out of an economic dip - and 2007 - before the economy crashed.

Empire Center for NYS Policy Executive Director, E. J. McMahon, said, "New York has been relatively weak in nurturing new business startups. It's relatively weak in the presence of small firms and they're growth in terms of employment."

For those 15 years - New York saw 1.7 percent job growth. Good news - until you realize only seven states did worse.

McMahon said, "Firms moving out of state between 1993 and 2007 took over 600,000 jobs with them out of the state. On the other side of that equation, firms moving into the state only brought with them 450,000 jobs. That makes a net loss from our point of view of about 150,000 jobs the state lost."

And that means New York lost more jobs as a percentage of its job base than any other state, according to the study.

Moody said, "You're looking at about 12,000 jobs that disappear a year moving to other states. Like a leaky faucet, you need to stop the leak."

This, as they say more than 1.5 million people have moved out of the state since 2000. The experts say that mimics the trend of businesses moving out during the same period - as people follow the money.

McMahon said, "This is some of the first hard proof of the extent it is happening, and calls to the need to do something."

The data is so detailed, they can basically predict that if you leave New York, you'll likely follow businesses to New Jersey, Connecticut, or Florida...statistics analysts hope will spur fresh policy discussions.

Lynam said, "We have to get people back to work, and with the large firms shrinking, we are going to need to find other ways to get jobs to New York State."

...Especially because the study doesn't include the last two years when the economy tanked - something that could mean some of the numbers are even worse.