Governor Hochul today released her executive budget for fiscal year 2026, which reflects an overdue recognition of the State’s strong fiscal position and capacity for making new public investments in order to ease cost of living pressures for working New Yorkers.
The fiscal year 2026 budget cycle is upon us and “affordability” is taking center stage. The mandate to address the rapidly rising cost-of-living in New York has never been more urgent, with consumer prices up about 20 percent since 2020. The cost of housing, in particular, has skyrocketed in the years since the Covid-19 pandemic, with home prices up over 50 percent—making housing costs the number one priority for addressing affordability in New York.
Healthcare didn’t take center stage in Governor Hochul’s State of the State address this week, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be central to New York politics this session. After all, rising healthcare costs are a key component of the affordability crisis squeezing New Yorkers, with premiums for individual and small-group health insurance set to increase by 12.7 percent this year.
Governor Hochul’s State of the State address made clear that “affordability” is her top priority this session. As part of her agenda, Governor Hochul and her team have put forward a set of policies intended to “put money back in New Yorkers’ pockets.” The four major proposals include a tax cut, an “inflation rebate payment,” an expansion of the child tax credit, and fully funding free school lunches for all public-school students in the State.
Census data released last month show that New York’s population growth has returned to pre-Covid patterns, characterized by both overall population growth and affordability pressure driving many working and middle-income New Yorkers to leave the state.
The governor's policy agenda lacks a strategy for structural reforms to lower the cost of living
By the State’s account, it currently provides enough UPK funding to provide a UPK seat to every four-year-old in the State. Nevertheless, the program remains far short of universal, with incomplete coverage of four-year-olds outside of the state’s major cities and limited provision for three-year-olds across the state.
The Superfund is a fiscally sound mechanism for upgrading our statewide infrastructure in the face of urgent climate challenges, and FPI commends the governor and legislature for successfully working together to enact it.
FPI today released a report by Dr. Emily Eisner on the staffing crisis in Upstate New York's hospitals. The report finds that 90 percent of Upstate hospital shifts are current understaffed, and that an additional 5,000 Registered Nurses and 20,000 ancillary staff are needed to achieve safe staffing levels. As the report shows, chronic understaffing leads to a 14 percent rise in mortality risk for patients on the worst 10 percent of hospital units—about 280 additional patients death for every 100,000 hospitalizations.
Much recent reporting has focused on the growth of CDPAP in isolation, but this perspective exaggerates home care growth by ignoring the role of agency-model home care, which accounts for 44 percent of all Medicaid-funded home care in New York.
State housing policy relies heavily on two federal programs that support housing affordability: the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and Housing Choice Vouchers (also known as “Section 8” vouchers). These two programs underpin most affordable housing construction in the US and play an important role in the provision of affordable housing in New York State.
New York spends more on Medicaid long-term care than most states, but this higher spending is driven primarily by higher enrollment, particularly among seniors, rather than by higher per-enrollee spending. This high enrollment reflects policymakers’ decision to make long-term care, particularly home care, relatively accessible for working- and middle-class seniors.
The “City of Yes” proposal would increase the housing supply in New York City by approximately 100,000 units by 2039. Without increased housing supply, New York City is at risk of economic stagnation and possible decline.
Childcare in New York State is unaffordable for many families, yet inadequately supports its workers. The State’s childcare costs are the third highest in the U.S., putting a strain on family budgets across the income distribution. The Bronx and Brooklyn have the costliest childcare as a share of family income of any county in the U.S.
A Primer for State and Local Policymakers
