New York's local governments are falling behind in "meeting their responsibilities to adequately maintain and improve" their physical infrastructure, says a new report from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's office. However, as the report points out, the problem isn't just a lack of money. Read More
Public-sector unions are only "superficially" democratic, often leading them to take positions opposed by a substantial number of their members and to take more interest in retirement benefits for older members than in wages and working conditions, according to a new study. Read More
A Rust Belt industrial "boom" spurred by new energy production is the focus of a front-page story in today's New York Times — highlighting, once again, the sort of growth upstate New York is not experiencing while Governor Andrew Cuomo continues to stall the issuance of regulations allowing hydraulic fracturing to produce shale gas. Read More
There’s been a huge increase in gas production in the Utica shale region, including two highly productive finds just across the New York border in northern Pennsylvania. And so the economic opportunity cost of New York State’s moratorium on shale gas exploration keeps on rising. Read More
It’s no surprise that Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli was able to announce another decrease in the tax-funded employer contribution rates to the state's biggest public pension fund. But the fund remains a bomb in the making. Read More
A recent online survey asked, "should employees have the right to decide, without force or penalty, whether to join or leave a labor union?" Nearly 83 percent of New York respondents said yes, they should. Read More
New York City and its suburbs continue to account for most of the year-over-year job growth in New York State, according to the latest data. Read More
The property tax cap for New York counties, towns and villages with fiscal years starting January 1, 2015 will start at 1.56 percent, slightly lower than last year's starting rate of 1.66 percent. The cap in each locality will vary based on the amount of applicable allowable exclusions for growth in local property values. Localities also will be able to exclude the amount by which the change in pension contributions exceeds two percentage points Read More
If GE and IBM have some truly great and promising ideas for next-generation semiconductor materials, why do they need a New York taxpayer subsidy to develop them? Ira Stoll has provided some answers in a must-read column. Read More
Most high-income New York City residents who left the city in 2012 moved to neighboring jurisdictions, according to a new analysis of federal Census data by the city Independent Budget Office (IBO). Today's Times claims this shows that wealthy New Yorkers are not "fleeing the city for tax havens." But who says they are? Besides, compared to the city, suburban New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are tax havens. Read More
After seven months of foot-dragging, New York's economic development agency finally got around to answering the Empire Center's request for details of state spending on an advertising campaign promoting the Start-Up NY tax-free zone program. The total price tag for the campaign over the past year has been nearly $35 million, most of it spent on TV commercials outside and inside New York State, according to the summary we received. Read More
New York State's year-over-year private sector job creation rate remained behind the national average in June. Seventy percent of the new jobs were in New York City, and upstate employment barely grew at all. Read More