Thanks @barnabyalter. That seems to work. 

What about on the load end? I tried putting a similar before(:each) there, but thinking about it more, it doesn't make much sense, but I'm still unable to get this to work either. 
      it "should load an nyucore record" do
        subject
        expect { data_loader.load }.to change(Nyucore, :count).by(+1)
      end
  Result: count should have been changed by 1, but was changed by 0