May 2006. Full Report >>

Executive Summary

Following the bursting of the “dot-com” and stock market bubbles of the late 1990s, and several widely publicized corporate-finance scandals, new federal regulations were put into place, most notably the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. At the State level, local regulatory institutions also focused new attention on the financial-services sector. In particular, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) of New York State has been extremely active in investigating various financial-services firms in New York. These… (read more)

May 24, 2006. Advocates call upon Governor to adopt legislature’s bi-partisan agreement on TANF Funds. Press release below. Also see attachments: The Allocation of the New York’s TANF Block Grant Funds for 2006-07 and Flexible Fund for Family Services allocations by county.

Assemblymember Deborah Glick and Advocates for Low-Income New Yorkers held a press conference today at the Legislative Office Building to urge Governor Pataki to stop playing politics with federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)… (read more)

May 3, 2006. Groups call upon the Governor to adopt the legislature’s bi-partisan agreement on use of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds. Joint release from New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, the Fiscal Policy Institute, the Hunger Action Network of New York State and the Empire Justice Center:

Advocates for Low-Income New Yorkers held a press conference today at the Legislative Office Building to urge Governor Pataki to stop playing politics with over $1 billion in federal Temporary Assistance to… (read more)

February 1, 2006. Testimony presented before the Assembly Standing Committees on Energy, Social Services and Aging joint hearing.

March 30, 2005. The Senate’s plan has considerably smaller cuts in basic low-income programs. Will the Senate accede to the harsher House budget? A press release from the Fiscal Policy Institute.

Contact:  Trudi Renwick, 518-786-3156

New York’s share of federal funding cuts in key programs that assist our state’s low-income elderly residents, families with children, and people with disabilities could be as much as $4.4 billion over the next five years under the budget plan the House passed earlier this… (read more)

November 12, 2004. Presentation prepared for the Policy Summit for Women Elected to New York State’s County and City Governments, sponsored by the  Susan B. Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership at the University of Rochester. Also see: Fact Sheet on NY Women’s Economic Security.

October 30, 2002. FPI Senior Economist Trudi Renwick critiques the statistical analyses used by Altreya Consulting LLC for its updated report on the Monroe County Department of Social Services.

July 26, 2002. By David Carroll of the California Budget Project and FPI’s Trudi Renwick. Brief in PDF..

Current federal law requires states to penalize families whose members do not comply with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) requirements. However, states have the flexibility to choose partial sanctions (benefit reductions), full sanctions (elimination of the families’ entire public assistance payments), or a combination of the two. California, New York, and 13 other states have chosen to use the partial… (read more)

February 19, 2002.  Testimony of Trudi Renwick in  Proceeding on Motion of the Commission To Consider Cost Recovery by Verizon and to  Investigate the Future Regulatory Framework, Case 00-C-1945. This testimony focuses on a proposal to expand programs used to determine telephone lifeline eligibility to include EITC, school lunch and Child Health Plus.

May 16, 2001. An article by Elizabeth Benjamin, Albany Times-Union, related to a briefing prepared by the Campaign for the Empire State Jobs Program: a state-subsidized program would aid thousands reaching end of 5-year benefits limit.

Labor unions and activists on Tuesday called on lawmakers to approve a $190 million program to provide 8,000 state-subsidized jobs for people who will hit a five-year time limit for federal welfare benefits in December.

The program proposed in a bill sponsored… (read more)