Driver’s License Fees: Low, Medium, and High-Cost States
September 16, 2016. The cost of getting a driver’s license has become entwined with many different issues recently. It is relevant to discussions of allowing unauthorized immigrants to apply for licenses. It has come up in states that require people to show identification in order to vote and in discussions surrounding fees that are a barrier to getting a state-issued ID. And, some states have acted to reduce the burden for some groups by allowing free or reduced-cost licenses to homeless people, senior citizens, veterans, or people recently released from incarceration. The fee charged for a driver’s license varies substantially [...]
Berkeley Report on Impact of $15 NY Minimum Wage Released
March 11, 2016. In a new report from the University of California at Berkeley, noted economist Michael Reich and colleagues take a comprehensive look at the likely impact of a $15 minimum wage in New York State. This report assesses the broad impact on businesses and the overall economy and employment levels from the proposed phased-in $15 minimum wage. The report makes a significant contribution to the minimum wage literature since it looks broadly across the economy and factors in both the impacts on workers and business operating costs, and considers the interaction between these forces. The report concludes that [...]
Executive Actions on Immigrants Will Bring Increased NY Tax Revenue
April 16, 2015. A new 50-state study, Undocumented Immigrants’ State and Local Tax Contributions, by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds that undocumented immigrants’ tax contributions would increase significantly under the Obama Administration’s executive actions and even more substantially under comprehensive immigration policy reform. The report is being co-released in New York by the Fiscal Policy Institute and is particularly relevant in connection with the hearing tomorrow, Friday April 17, on executive action at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The report’s key findings about New York: Undocumented immigrants in New York State contribute significantly to state and [...]
FPI Commends Governor Cuomo for Advancing Middle Class Circuit Breaker—Targeted Tax Relief Tied to Income Is the Most Effective Mechanism
January 14, 2015. Governor Cuomo just announced a $1.66 billion property tax credit program (commonly referred to as a “Circuit Breaker”) to help ease the burden on working class families who are paying too much of their income in property taxes. The Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI), working with our partners in the Omnibus Property Tax Consortium, has been calling for a targeted circuit breaker for years. “We are pleased that the Governor announced a circuit breaker proposal that targets relief to working and middle class New Yorkers. This is a step in the right direction. We urge the Governor to [...]
Immigrants Are More Likely to Be Business Owners …but They’re Not “Super-Entrepreneurs”
January 14, 2015. Immigrants are entrepreneurial—that is by now well established. But how much more is not as widely understood. As I was working on a report about immigrant business ownership, Bringing Vitality to Main Street, released today by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas with the Fiscal Policy Institute, I dug into what the research shows. What I found is that there is broad consensus that immigrants are a little more likely to own businesses than their U.S.-born counterparts, but not a lot more likely. Specifically, immigrants are about 10-15 percent more likely to own businesses than their U.S.-born [...]
Interactive immigration graphic
This redirects the viewer directly to the link below. This page does not get displayed. This goes with the AS/COA report done by David.
Acknowledgements for Bringing Vitality to Main Street
In the research and writing of Bringing Vitality to Main Street: How Immigrant Small Businesses Help Local Economies Grow, I am deeply indebted to so many people that the full page of acknowledgments has to be posted online. —David Dyssegaard Kallick, author, Bringing Vitality to Main Street: How Immigrant Small Businesses Help Local Economies Grow. Kate Brick policy manager at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA), was a valuable partner from beginning to end in the conception, design, and editing of this report. Former AS/COA policy manager Richard André was also a key part of the initial framing of the research, [...]
NYC Median Family Income Up for First Time since Great Recession
October 15, 2014. After five years of decline, median family income in New York City rose by 3.5 percent between 2012 and 2013 in inflation-adjusted terms, according to recently-published Census data.[1] This compares with increases of 0.9 percent at the national level and 1.6 percent for all of New York State, including the city. While the city’s increase far surpassed the nation’s and state’s, median family income in the city was still 5.2 percent lower in 2013 than it had been in 2008 at the start of the Great Recession. The corresponding national and state declines for the 2008 to [...]
FPI proposes a tax on the most expensive NYC pied-à-terre residential units
September 22, 2014. By James Parrott, FPI Deputy Director and Chief Economist. Introduction In the context of the continued global concentration of income and wealth, a growing number of ultra-luxury residences in New York City are being bought by people who are not full-time city residents. For many such owners, a Manhattan pied-à-terre is one among several residences they own around the world for occasional use. Some owners see it as an investment, or simply as a place to park a portion of their substantial wealth. The City’s Independent Budget Office notes that in some of the newer luxury residential [...]
Hundreds of thousands of low-income families would benefit from a New York minimum wage increase
July 17, 2014. David Neumark’s piece in the July 6 Wall Street Journal (“Who Really Gets the Minimum Wage?”) argues that because some low-wage earners are in high-income families, increasing the minimum wage isn’t a very effective way to reduce poverty. In particular, he cites research to the effect that “if we were to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 nationally, 18% of the benefits of the higher wages (holding employment fixed) would go to poor families [but] 29% would go to families with incomes three times the poverty level or higher.” But what is more relevant, more than half [...]
Parrott Presentation: Confronting New York City’s Retirement Crisis
June 17, 2014. The New York City Central Labor Council and the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at The New School sponsored a June 17 conference, Confronting New York City’s Retirement Crisis. FPI’s James Parrott made one of the opening presentations at the conference. Other speakers included State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, and New York City Public Advocate Letitia James, as well as leading labor union officials, union pension experts, and academic and finance sector experts. National retirement security expert Teresa Ghilarducci of the New School co-convened the conference together with Vinny Alvarez, President [...]
Over one-third of New York City employees are paid less than $14 an hour; workers of color are twice as likely to be low-wage
June 17, 2014. The Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) released a new data brief today showing the sector of employment and race/ethnicity for New York City workers paid less than $14 an hour. On an annual basis, $14 an hour would put a family $1,900 below the $31,039 poverty threshold for a New York City family. Altogether, 1.2 million New York City workers are paid less than $14 an hour, 36 percent of all public and private wage and salary workers. This includes part-time as well as full-time workers. The FPI analysis showed that the largest employers of low-wage workers are [...]
Statement on New York City Budget Accounting Action
May 12, 2014. Today’s joint announcement by Mayor de Blasio and Comptroller Stringer clarifies a City budget accounting question regarding an obligation the City incurred in connection with the recent labor settlement with the United Federation of Teachers. The payments in question pertain to UFT members retiring after June 30, 2014 and cover wage increases for the first two years (2009 and 2010) of the recently settled contract. Officials of both the Mayor’s and the Comptroller’s offices have confirmed that the announcement is strictly an accounting issue, and that it has no effect on the UFT settlement, the costs of [...]
Another View on Mayor de Blasio’s FY 2015 New York City Executive Budget
May 9, 2014. Understandably, much of the commentary on Mayor de Blasio’s FY 2015 Executive Budget has dealt with the financial impact of the recent UFT contract if applied across the entire 350,000-person unionized city workforce. It is, afterall, by far the most significant labor deal in City history, potentially affecting the entire workforce for 7 years, and 150,000 of those workers for an additional two years going back to 2009 and 2010. Some observers can’t quite grasp that Bill de Blasio pulled that off, restoring a constructive labor-management dialogue based on mutual respect, and doing that without destabilizing City [...]
The Significance of the TWU and UFT Labor Contracts
May 7, 2014. This commentary by FPI’s James Parrott on the new New York City labor contracts was requested by CUNY’s Joseph S. Murphy Institute and appears on their new blog. For the first time in nearly five years, major labor agreements were recently reached covering public sector workers in New York City. On April 17, Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 concluded a new 5-year contract dating from January 2012 covering 34,000 workers at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), most of whom work for the subway and bus system in New York City. Two weeks later on May 1, [...]
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New report confirms New York’s profound income polarization
February 19, 2014. A new report from the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) that presents data on income distribution trends for all 50 states from 1917-2011, confirms an analysis of income trends in New York that the Fiscal Policy Institute initially published in 2010. The report, by economists Estelle Sommeiller and Mark Price, builds on a groundbreaking study by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanual Saez in 2003 that used data from income tax returns to document rising inequality in the United States since World War I. FPI’s latest estimates of the share of income received by the top 1% [...]
Statement on Governor Cuomo’s Tax Proposals
January 6, 2014. Governor Cuomo in unveiling his tax proposals today has identified a key issue in growing the state’s economy—reducing the property tax burden on New Yorkers, and we agree. The Fiscal Policy Institute has long proposed a circuit breaker as a solution to the burden of high property taxes on moderate and lower income families and to ensure that retirees are not forced out of their homes. What the governor could have added is that creating strong, stable, middle class neighborhoods promotes a better business climate that will create new business opportunities and jobs. But even the circuit [...]
Statement on the Solomon/McCall Tax Reform and Fairness Commission Report
November 14, 2013. Statement from Ron Deutsch, Executive Director, New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, and Frank Mauro, Executive Director, Fiscal Policy Institute. Any discussion of fair taxation in New York must acknowledge that our state has the greatest income inequality in the nation and that our tax system is partially to blame. We are experiencing record child poverty rates and levels of hunger and homelessness that are unprecedented. Too many of our residents are suffering and struggling to make ends meet and today’s report by the Governor’s Tax Reform and Fairness Commission does little to address this growing problem. The [...]
Almost 3.2 million New Yorkers to See a Cut in Food Assistance Beginning Today
November 1, 2013. Beginning today, almost 3.2 million people in New York will see their food assistance benefits cut as the federal government ends a temporary boost to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The New Yorkers affected by this cut—in what used to be known as the “food stamps” program—include more than 1.2 million children and over 1 million elderly and disabled individuals. Overall, New York residents will receive $332 million less in SNAP benefits in the 11 months from November 1, 2013 through September 30, 2014. Today’s cut hits all of the more than 47 million Americans, including [...]
The Taxpayer Costs of Low-Wage Fast Food Jobs in New York State
October 16, 2013. Fast food jobs are by far the biggest source of job growth in New York State and New York City in this recovery and over the past decade. But, with a median hourly pay of only $8.90 an hour in NYC, this growth in fast food jobs is one of the reasons that poverty has risen sharply during the recovery. NYC has a record number of working poor—one out of every 10 workers in NYC works, but can’t earn enough to lift their family earnings above the poverty line. The rapid increase in fast food employment is [...]