Tax & Budget

Budget Breakdown: Fiscal Year 2026 Enacted Budget

The Enacted Budget, while it contains few significant new policy initiatives, allows state spending to recover some of the lost ground from a decade of austerity policies in the 2010s. The most important policy measure in the budget is a long overdue increase in unemployment insurance benefits that will better prepare the State economy for a possible recession (discussed in detail below). The bad news is that the Enacted Budget contains serious fiscal errors, including permanent tax cuts and one-time payments that will cost $3 billion in fiscal year 2026 alone.

Fiscal Policy Institute2025-05-14T15:53:17-04:00May 14th, 2025|Featured on Home, State Budget, Tax & Budget|

FPI’s Fiscal Year 2026 Enacted Budget Briefing

FPI presented a briefing on the New York State budget for fiscal year 2026.

Fiscal Policy Institute2025-05-14T00:57:42-04:00May 9th, 2025|Featured on Home, Healthcare, Housing, Policy & Research, State Budget, Tax & Budget, Tax Policy, Transit|

Statement on Governor Hochul’s Announcement of a Budget Agreement

Budget agreement includes serious fiscal missteps that will undermine the State’s ability to weather federal funding cuts

Nathan Gusdorf2025-05-14T11:57:23-04:00April 28th, 2025|State Budget, Statements|

What to Look for in New York City’s Executive Budget

The Adopted Budget should anticipate realistic revenue and spending on core services while maintaining a flexible reserve to prepare for fiscal uncertainty. The budget response put forward by the City Council takes important steps toward these goals.

Andrew Perry2025-04-29T17:09:36-04:00April 24th, 2025|City Budget, Featured on Home|

Budget Negotiations have Finally Started

Final budget must omit tax cuts, shore up funding for essential services – transit, childcare, housing – and fix unemployment insurance

Nathan Gusdorf2025-05-14T11:58:50-04:00April 23rd, 2025|State Budget, Tax & Budget|

State Ends Year with $6 Billion over Projections

New York State’s fiscal year 2025 ended on March 31 with good news for the State’s coffers: Total receipts for the year came in $6.0 billion higher than forecast as of January 2025, and a full $12.3 billion higher than forecast at the beginning of the fiscal year in May 2024. As we enter the final stage of budget negotiations, this additional revenue will allow the State to prepare for federal funding cuts by investing in the MTA, childcare, NYCHA, and other critical services and infrastructure.

Fiscal Policy Institute2025-04-24T15:25:08-04:00April 21st, 2025|Featured on Home, State Budget, Tax & Budget|

Preventing a NYCHA Budget Crisis

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.

Emily Eisner2025-04-08T17:01:00-04:00April 8th, 2025|City Budget, Housing, Policy & Research, Reports, Briefs and Presentations, Social Policy, State Budget|

The Urgent Need to Raise Unemployment Benefits

Unemployment insurance stabilizes the state economy during economic downturns, but New York’s UI system has been insolvent for decades and UI benefits are inadequate to keep workers out of poverty.

Emily Eisner2025-04-09T14:34:17-04:00April 7th, 2025|Economic Trends & Policy, Labor Market & Workforce, State Budget, Tax Policy|

How to Fund the MTA

Lawmakers must look to progressive revenue sources for MTA funding

Nathan Gusdorf, Andrew Perry2025-04-04T14:20:31-04:00March 25th, 2025|Must Read, State Budget, Tax Policy|

Annual Briefing on the Executive Budget

FPI released its annual report on the Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2026

Fiscal Policy Institute2025-02-20T18:46:05-05:00February 20th, 2025|State Budget|

Medicaid Enrollment: Getting the Facts Straight

Stories of a New York Medicaid enrollment crisis are difficult to square with other data. Census data shows that 47.0 percent of New Yorkers were covered by employer-sponsored insurance in 2023; that’s slightly below the national average of 48.6 percent, but certainly not a crisis

Michael Kinnucan2025-02-16T13:36:08-05:00February 15th, 2025|State Budget|

Strange Accounting: Understanding the Growth in New York’s Medicaid Spending

The Executive Budget projects total state-share Medicaid growth of 17.1 percent, or $6.4 billion – an extraordinary rate of growth. Department of Health Medicaid spending alone is projected to rise by $4.3 billion or 13.7 percent. Yet enrollment has declined sharply over the past 18 months and is projected to remain virtually flat this year. What explains this dramatic divergence between spending and enrollment?

Michael Kinnucan2025-02-16T13:36:59-05:00February 15th, 2025|State Budget|