The tax reform “framework” issued Wednesday by President Trump and congressional Republican leaders told us little we didn’t already know about their shared tax policy goals—while continuing to leave many key questions unanswered. Read More
Blog
All 12 of New York State's metropolitan statistical areas had economic growth rates below the national average in 2016, according to newly released federal data. Read More
The Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill heading to a possible vote next week would appear to be more costly for New York State in the long term than previous GOP repeal-and-replace plans. Read More
New York's loss of residents to other states is a long-established and troubling trend. But the impact of out-migration on the Empire State's economy, and on personal income in particular, is another, more complicated story. Unfortunately, the annual release of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data on interstate taxpayer migration continues to inspire some wrongheaded conclusions on this score. Read More
A historic decline in the uninsured population continued in 2016, both nationwide and in New York, albeit at a slower rate that signals a plateauing trend, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau. Read More
On the heels of a strong investment return in 2017, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli just announced a slight reduction in taxpayer-funded pension rates for the state and its local governments. Read More
This month’s setbacks for New York’s healthcare system were largely driven by flaws in the ACA, not by attacks on the law from President Trump or Republicans in Congress. Read More
With some minor variations, the state Labor Department's jobs report for July is almost a repeat of the previous month's numbers. Read More
Mayor Bill de Blasio says the wealthiest New Yorkers should "chip in a little extra"—a mere $800 million in higher income taxes, or an average of $25,000 per affected household—to pay for subway improvements and transit fare subsidies. But given Washington's tax reform agenda, de Blasio's latest soak-the-rich tax hike proposal is badly timed. Read More
The scheduled return of an Obamacare tax on insurance premiums in 2018 would cost New Yorkers $1.1 billion in the first year, according to an industry-sponsored report published this week. Read More
New York State's unfunded liability for other post-employment benefits (OPEB) grew to $87.3 billion in fiscal 2017, a $9.4 billion increase over the previous year, according to a disclosure in the state Budget Division's just-released Financial Plan Update for the first quarter of fiscal 2017. Read More
A technical change in how Medicare compensates hospitals for treating the poor and uninsured has drawn a heated response from Governor Andrew Cuomo that demands clarification. Read More