Governor Hochul’s directive to the MTA to 'indefinitely pause' planned congestion pricing for New York City, and her proposed alternative revenue sources, are ill-advised tax and economic policy.
The Fiscal Policy Institute today released a new report in its state migration series, "Who Is Leaving New York State? Social and Labor Characteristics", which finds that affordability — and in particular housing and the cost of raising a family — are increasingly driving State population loss.
The fiscal year 2025 enacted budget totals $237 billion, an inflation-adjusted decline of 0.4 percent from fiscal year’s 2024 total budget. In non-inflation-adjusted terms (nominal dollars) this represents an increase from fiscal year 2024’s total budget of $231.6 billion.
Under the fiscal year 2025 executive budget, inflation-adjusted state funding would fall for a third consecutive year. While State spending rose in response to Covid, it will return to its pre-Covid trend by fiscal year 2025.
The DOB’s assumed growth rates for State revenue are unusually low by historical standards, and are out of sync with most forecasts of U.S. economic growth over coming years. FPI expects State revenue growth in fiscal year 2025 will likely exceed current forecasts by at least $4 billion.
The New York State Senate and Assembly will soon release their proposals for the fiscal year 2025 budget. Following last week’s revenue consensus, the legislature will be able to propose $1.3 billion more in spending than the executive budget. This additional revenue will allow the legislature to restore many of the budget cuts proposed by the executive budget, especially to school aid and home care. The legislature can, however, go beyond restoring the proposed cuts and put forward deeper investments in public services that address New York’s affordability crisis. These investments will require raising additional revenue.
Over the past five budget cycles, the upward revisions to revenue established at the Economic and Revenue Consensus meeting has ranged from 0.6 percent to 1.9 percent of annual state operating funds. While these numbers may seem small in magnitude, the dollar amounts are significant when compared to current cost saving measures proposed in the fiscal year 2025 executive budget. Annualized revenue adjustments average $972 million over the past 6 budget cycles (excluding 2020) compared to a proposed $454 million in school aid cuts and $600 million in cuts to the homecare program CDPAP in this year’s executive budget.
December 11, 2023 Submitted to the New York City Council Committee on Finance Good morning — I am Andrew Perry, Senior Policy Analyst at the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization committed to improving public policy to better the economic and social conditions of all New Yorkers. Overview: New York City faces real fiscal strain in the current fiscal year and next year. However, projected gaps are the result of an unexpected and temporary fiscal shock – the [...]
New York’s fiscal year 2024 Enacted Budget Financial Plan, released June 2023, projected budget shortfalls for fiscal years 2025 through 2027. While future budget gaps are a perennial feature of New York’s budget forecasts, the most recent projected gaps exceed those generally projected in times of greater economic stability, aligning instead with gaps projected during economic downturns. These projections must be interpreted, however, in light of an improving economic outlook as well as the inherent uncertainty of fiscal forecasting.
Read the full report here: Economy Shows Improvement, but Employment Needs Time to Recover Several measures show signs of gradual improvement for New York residents as the state emerges from the covid-19 recession. One such indicator is the steep decline of new unemployment insurance claims, which had recently peaked in winter this year. Another such positive indicator is the continued gradual decrease in the statewide unemployment (U-3) rate, which peaked at 16.2 in April of 2020 as a result of pandemic-induced layoffs and business closures. The [...]
New York State relies on fine, fee, and surcharge revenue to fund government operations- including the functions of the courts and state agencies providing criminal justice, public safety, and victim services. This funding is generated via a complex set of state statutes, including penal, vehicle and traffic, environmental conservation, judiciary, and finance laws and is spent through the General Fund and a bevy of State Special Revenue Funds. No one state government entity or agency is charged with comprehensively reporting on the imposition, collection, and [...]
Read the full report here: State and Local Employment in New York, Cut in the Pandemic, Has Been Down for a Decade State and local government employment is vital to our economy and our quality of life. State and local governments—and their employees—exist because New Yorkers have decided over generations that we need people who are dedicated and trained to teach our children, clean our streets, protect our communities, maintain our highways and bridges, and perform hundreds of other jobs. The number of public employees [...]
Download the full report: "Domestic Workers Are Essential Workers: By the Numbers in New York" Throughout the coronavirus crisis domestic workers have been placed under a double pressure. Already underpaid, many have lost their jobs, or lost hours on the job, putting them under added financial stress. Even when on the job, however, domestic workers find themselves under added physical and psychological stress, acting as essential workers during a pandemic at some risk to their own health as they protect the health of others. Domestic [...]
The New York State Assembly and Senate both support creating a fund to provide unemployment insurance to workers who are excluded from the unemployment insurance system, primarily undocumented immigrants and people leaving incarceration during the Covid-19 pandemic. Both houses included $2.1 billion in their one-house budgets this week, the starting points for negotiating the final state budget. This is an impressive commitment to a critical priority. However, matching the minimum level of benefits that other unemployed New Yorkers receive and extending the aid through the [...]
Read the full report: The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021: New York’s Share of the Coronavirus Fiscal Recovery Fund The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 includes $350 billion in aid for states, territories, and tribal governments for the purpose of alleviating the fiscal stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the $350 billion, $195.3 billion is allocated for payments to states, $130.2 billion for city and county governments, $20 billion for tribal governments, and $4.5 billion for territories. These coronavirus fiscal recovery funds [...]
