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.
How to Fund the MTA
Lawmakers must look to progressive revenue sources for MTA funding
Fixing Unemployment Insurance
Download the Memo Download the Report The Fiscal Policy Institute today released two publications on how to fix New York State's insolvent unemployment insurance system: a memo recommending tax changes, and a short report detailing the UI system’s chronic underfunding and low benefit level. Unemployment insurance (UI), which provides temporary income to laid-off workers, is one of the State’s most important economic stabilization policies. Unemployment can both throw workers into poverty and exacerbate recessions by [...]
Annual Briefing on the Executive Budget
FPI released its annual report on the Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2026
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
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?
FPI’s First Look at the Executive Budget
Video of FPI's first look at the fiscal year 2026 executive budget
How Does the Inflation Rebate Stack Up?
The proposed “inflation rebate” will not offset NY’s cost-of-living squeeze
Fact Sheet: The 2026 Executive Budget’s Fiscal Outlook
The executive budget makes significant upward revisions to its expected revenue for both the current and upcoming fiscal years (fiscal years 2025 and 2026, respectively), raising anticipated tax receipts by $4.6 billion and $4.1 billion from the levels projected in the fiscal year 2025 enacted budget financial plan. Strong personal income tax receipts drive higher-than-anticipated revenue.
Statement on Fiscal Year 2026 Executive Budget
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.
What to Expect in the Budget: Housing Policy
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.
What to Expect in the Budget: Healthcare
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 Affordability Policy Report Card
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.
Statement on 2025 State of the State
The governor's policy agenda lacks a strategy for structural reforms to lower the cost of living
Statement on Climate Change Superfund Act
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.