Yesterday marked the end of a second straight sub-par fiscal year for most of the nation's state and local public pension funds, including all five New York City funds and the New York State Teachers' Retirement System (NYSTRS). Read More
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Claims that a state-run single-payer health care system would save money do not add up, according to an analysis released today by the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More
Why a single-payer health plan would be wrong for New York Read More
Proponents of a single-payer health plan for New York pitch it as a cure-all — one fix that would achieve universal coverage, let people to go to any doctor or hospital, abolish copays and deductibles, cut down on paperwork, and save billions in the bargain. Forty-five billion dollars, to be precise — or so said Assembly Health Chairman Richard Gottfried of Manhattan, as the Democrat-controlled lower house passed his New York Health Act on June 1. It sounds too good to be true because it is. My analysis for the Empire Center shows that his $45 billion savings estimate relies on tendentious assumptions, debatable methods and a heavy dose of wishful thinking. Read More
The decision by the nation’s largest solar panel provider to locate a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Buffalo, and to create other jobs in Western New York, could be a needed shot in the arm for a city and a region that’s been declining economically for many years. But there are significant risks and unanswered questions associated with the state government’s willingness to commit the bulk of its “Buffalo Billion” resources to the massive SolarCity factory on the site of the former RiverBend steel plant. Read More
Payroll data for 74,988 public authority employees, totaling $4.1 billion, have been added to SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. Read More
Resolutions passed by state lawmakers in the final hours of the legislative session steered a total of $56 million to 1,675 pet projects across the state, according to data added today to SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. Read More
During the first few years after Wall Street prices bottomed out in 2009, public-pension funds across the country reaped double-digit returns. They were riding a bull market pumped up by ultra-low interest rates, and it wouldn’t last. Now pension managers have been struggling to break even — the predictable outcome of a funding strategy that continues to expose taxpayers to unreasonable long-term risks. Read More