January 30, 2013. As part of a coalition of community, labor, faith, student and Occupy organizations, the Fiscal Policy Institute has launched a campaign to bring fairness and transparency to New York’s corporate tax system, ending costly loopholes that cost taxpayers and businesses dearly. The coalition is calling on Governor Cuomo and the Legislature to close a series of unfair corporate tax loopholes, raising nearly $1billion for this year’s state budget and leveling the playing field between large out-of-state multinational … (read more)

January 28, 2013. A minimum wage increase included in Governor Cuomo’s budget proposal, released last Tuesday, would raise the paychecks of over 1.5 million low-paid New Yorkers, according to a new report from the Fiscal Policy Institute and the National Employment Law Project. The Governor’s proposal would raise the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.75 per hour on July 1, 2013, and the increased wages would generate more than $1 billion in new consumer spending, supporting the creation of … (read more)

January 7, 2013. Frank Mauro will be stepping down as FPI’s Executive Director at the end of New York’s 2013 Legislative session. Mauro has long been one of Albany’s best known experts on budget and public policy issues from his work at FPI and earlier as Secretary of the NYS Assembly Ways and Means Committee, director of Assembly Speaker Stanley Fink’s Program Development Group, director of research for the last major revision of the New York City Charter, and Deputy … (read more)

August 8, 2012. Today the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a new report showing that a “Cuts Only” approach to reducing the federal deficit would drastically cut federal investments in education, roads and bridges, and disaster relief. Cuts of this magnitude would do great damage to the economy. FPI’s press release (below) highlights the fact that the House-passed “Ryan Budget,” a prime example of the “Cuts Only” approach, would cost New York state and local governments $2.7 billion … (read more)

June 14, 2012. More than one in six small business owners in the United States is an immigrant, according to a new report from FPI’s Immigration Research Initiative. Immigrants – people born in another country – make up 18 percent of all small business owners in the United States. By contrast, immigrants are 13 percent of the population and 16 percent of the labor force, according to the American Community Survey from 2010. That’s a big change from 20 years … (read more)

May 7, 2012. A new report from FPI looks at the importance of jobs in the nonprofit health care and social assistance sector in New York City, and examines how the hardships facing the city’s low-income population – the main constituency served by the nonprofit human services sector – have grown in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and the weak recovery over the past three years.

• Full report
• Press release
• Companion report released by the Human Services

March 8, 2012. FPI and 16 other groups delivered a letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo today asking him to drop language included hundreds of times in his executive budget proposal for 2012-2013. The language undercuts legislative authority and effectively removes the public from decisions regarding the use of taxpayer money by giving the Governor power to move money between state agencies without oversight. The language goes even further than that, authorizing suballocations from “on budget” state agencies to “off budget” … (read more)

February 16, 2012. New data show that New York’s black and Hispanic workers have been hit especially hard by joblessness during the recession and the weak recovery. According to a report released today by the Economic Policy Institute, No relief in 2012 for high unemployment for African Americans and Latinos, New York is one of 14 states with double digit unemployment rates for both blacks and Hispanics. Press release with New York figures>>… (read more)

January 31, 2012. Lawmakers, tax experts and advocates gathered to urge that corporate tax loopholes be closed, pointing to a recent report from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Corporate Tax Dodging In the 50 States, 2008-2010, which reveals glaring inequities in the way that businesses are taxed (or not taxed). Working from the principles of enforcement, fairness, and transparency, the their taxes, reforming the state’s Corporate Alternate Minimum Tax, taxing nonresident hedge … (read more)

January 30, 2012. The change would directly benefit about one in six of New York workers – that is, 1.6 million low-wage workers – and their families. Most (90 percent) of these low-wage workers are adults and a greater share are women, black or Hispanic than for New York workers overall. The minimum wage in New York is low by historical standards – at one time it could keep a family of three out of poverty – and in comparison … (read more)