May 9, 2013. Should legal immigrants who are not yet citizens be permitted to vote in New York City elections?

The NYC City Council will debate this question beginning on Thursday, May 9, in connection with Intro 410, which would allow pre-citizens to vote in New York City municipal elections.

It wouldn’t be the first time noncitizens could vote in New York elections. School board elections, before they were abolished, were open to all parents of children in New York… (read more)

May 2, 2013. A new report from JobsFirstNYC and co-authored by James Parrott, Deputy Director and Chief Economist, Fiscal Policy Institute, and Lazar Treschan, Director of Youth Policy, Community Service Society, takes an in-depth look at both the supply and demand dimensions of the job market faced by New York City’s 18-24 young adult population. Barriers to Entry: The Increasing Challenges Faced by Young Adults in the New York City Labor Market looks at changes in the city’s labor market… (read more)

April 10, 2013. With policymakers in Washington calling for federal tax reform, the Fiscal Policy Institute said it is essential that members of Congress consider the beneficial long-term impacts of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) as well as these credits’ short-run benefits. In emphasizing the importance of making the current temporary enhancements of these credits permanent, FPI pointed to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that… (read more)

March 25, 2013. This was to have been the year New York caught up with the 19 other states and the District of Columbia with a minimum wage above the $7.25 an hour federal level. Minimum wage legislation that passed the Assembly also would have indexed the minimum wage in future years—as 10 other states do—so that inflation would not steadily erode its purchasing power. However, the agreement reached over the weekend in Albany falls far short. It increases the… (read more)

March 13, 2013. A report by the National Employment Law Project and the Fiscal Policy Institute shows the dangers of watering down the $9.00 plus indexing minimum wage proposal, which has the backing of most New Yorkers and majorities in both the Senate and the Assembly.  The report details the greater benefits for workers and the state economy from an increase to $9.00 an hour with indexing compared to the proposal for an $8.75 an hour increase without indexing:… (read more)

March 11, 2013. A letter to the editor by James Parrott, Crain’s New York Business.

Greg David’s March 4 column (“Inequality debate doesn’t reflect reality”) could have been titled “Economists agree NYC’s inequality is very high and poverty is up; some think it’s a problem.”

Fiscal Policy Institute reports have documented this reality: The local economy has fared better than the nation overall in the recovery, yet inflation-adjusted median incomes here have plummeted by 8%, more than for the… (read more)

March 5, 2013. Part I of the budget briefing on Mayor Bloomberg’s Preliminary FY 2014 NYC Budget makes the following points:

1. Unemployment remains very high in this historically weak “recovery.” NYC job growth better than the U.S., but considerable hardships persist.
2. NYC tax revenues have rebounded, but federal and state aid share declined.
3. State budget choices and pressures continue to squeeze NYC.
4. City-funded expenditures projected to increase 3.4% in FY 2014, with increases in debt service and health

… (read more)

February 27, 2013. A proposal is gaining ground in New York State that would allow all students—including those who are undocumented immigrants—equal access to the state’s Tuition Assistance… (read more)

February 24, 2013. This article ran in the Kansas City Star, the Denver Post, the Bradenton (Florida) Herald, the Anchorage Daily News, and other local papers around the country.

States Lead the Way on Immigration Reform

By David Dyssegaard Kallick and Tanya Broder

While President Obama pushed Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform in his State of the Union address, many states are already paving the way toward a more sensible set of policies.

Nowhere is this clearer than… (read more)

February 16, 2013. When viewed with a gender lens, the Governor’s 2013-2014 budget impacts New York City’s low-income women and their families in many ways, from decreased resources for low-income women seeking to get a foothold in the job market, to reduced funding for a wide range of essential support services, including access to child care. These proposed budget cuts, coupled with a weak recovery and sharp increases in poverty levels in NYC, further destabilize those most in need. Over… (read more)