The fiscal year 2026 budget process featured negotiations around major education and child policy matters. Most significantly, lawmakers considered changes to the State’s $26 billion Foundation Aid formula, enacting changes that shift substantial funding away from New York City.
Over 100 organizations signed a letter calling on Congress to protect the essential plan, which provides health insurance to 1.6 million New Yorkers.
3.5 million New Yorkers – 18 percent of the state population – depend on SNAP benefits, which average $209 per month for a participant (about $2,500 per year). The OBBBA would threaten SNAP benefits for over 1 million New Yorkers, including 363,000 children.
Rent Guidelines Board votes to lower range of possible rent increases for 2-year leases Download the Slides Watch the Testimony Last Thursday, FPI’s Chief Economist, Emily Eisner, testified to the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) of New York City, at the invitation of one of the Board’s Tenant members, Adán Soltren. Dr. Eisner's testimony made the case that current economic conditions and uncertainty regarding federal housing and safety-net policy demand that the RGB [...]
While most coverage of the Republican reconciliation proposals has focused on Medicaid, the largest financial impact on New York’s healthcare system comes from another program – the Essential Plan. The current House Republican budget proposal threatens to cut the program by $7.6 billion or 57 percent, while increasing state Medicaid costs by $2.7 billion.
A reduction of $10 billion in federal Medicaid funding would result in the direct loss of over 78,000 jobs in healthcare across the state and over 136,000 additional jobs lost through economic spillovers.
In this emergency briefing, FPI's health policy director, Michael Kinnucan, discusses the current budget reconciliation proposals to cut Medicaid and how these policies will impact New York State.
In February, Congressional Republicans – including all seven New York representatives – voted for a budget reconciliation package requiring $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next ten years. The reconciliation package set an overall target for spending reductions, but didn’t announce what specifically would be cut from the program. This week, House leadership finally revealed which program areas will be targeted.
FPI presented a briefing on the New York State budget for fiscal year 2026.
Republicans have argued that they can cut Medicaid without cutting services to vulnerable populations by cutting “waste, fraud and abuse”; by targeting people who are not, or in their view should not be, eligible for the program; and by reforming complex state financing mechanisms like provider taxes.
Thursday Briefing, April 17 https://youtu.be/AOGhN5R9myw
The Trump Administration Just Cut Hundreds of Millions of Dollars a Year from New York’s 1115 waiver – and that could be just the beginning
New York State legislators have the opportunity to address private sector healthcare affordability by passing the Fair Pricing Act (S.705/A.2140). The act would address the root cause of rising healthcare costs by regulating hospital prices, which are the key driver of spiraling healthcare inflation.
New York State has enacted substantial expansions to its childcare subsidy program in recent years, supporting more families than ever. Yet the State risks undermining these gains by underfunding the program in fiscal year 2026, forcing New York City and other localities across the state to deny service to eligible families beginning as early as April 2025, putting them on a waitlist.
The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) houses over 500,000 New Yorkers and receives a majority of its funding from the federal government, leaving it especially at risk of impending federal budget cuts. New York State must be prepared to fill gaps in both the operating funding and capital funding for NYCHA.