The Empire Center for Public Policy will honor the late former Governor Hugh L. Carey with a policy forum series devoted to issues in New York State government. Read More
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State and local government employees in New York collect taxpayer-guaranteed pension benefits that are far more generous than those available to most private-sector workers. Use this calculator to see just how generous those benefits can be. Read More
Is it time to consider potential changes to New York’s state budget-making rules? At its inaugural Governor Hugh L. Carey Policy Forum in Albany on May 30, the Empire Center will assemble leading experts with hands-on experience in the budget process to explore answers to those questions. Read More
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) employees were paid an average of $100,302 last year, according to data released today on SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s transparency website. Read More
Overtime payments jumped nearly 16 percent last year at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), fueling agency-wide average pay hikes of 6 percent, according to newly posted payroll records at SeeThroughNY.net. The increase in MTA payroll costs for 2018 alone was $418 million—$82 million more than the authority expects to raise annually from its latest round of fare, ticket and toll hikes. Read More
In a turnabout from recent trends, downstate New York’s population decreased twice as fast as upstate’s last year, according to the latest Census Bureau annual estimates. Read More
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has apparently doubled the price tag of her Medicare buy-in proposal, from 4 percent of income to 8 percent – but the math still does not add up. Read More
By midnight Monday, more than 9 million New Yorkers will have filed their income tax returns for 2018. And most will then have cause to wonder what the Great New York SALT Panic of 2018 was all about. Read More