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New York’s Legislature has been exempt from many provisions of the state Freedom of Information Law since FOIL was first enacted in 1974. The Assembly and Senate ultimately decide how much legislative information to make public. This makes about as much sense as putting Cookie Monster in charge of security at the Chips Ahoy factory. As a result, a lot of information on legislative matters ranging from individual employee timesheets to a billion-dollar slush fund has been concealed from taxpayers. But if Governor Cuomo has his way, that could soon change. Read More

New York has seldom seen an executive initiative as politically radical or economically reckless as Gov. Cuomo’s proposal for a $15-per-hour statewide minimum wage. Read More

Pension payments to 78,523 New York City public school and City University of New York retirees were added today to SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center's transparency website. Read More

Pensions averaged $67,476 for teachers and other professionals who retired in 2014-15 after working at least 30 years in New York State public schools, according to data posted today on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. Read More

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's campaign for a statewide $15-an-hour minimum wage is based on the assertion that "no one who works a full-time job should be forced to live in poverty." Few would disagree. But here's the thing: No one who works a full-time job in New York has to live in poverty — thanks largely to a program pioneered at the state level by the governor's father. Read More

Before leaving Albany for the Legislature's Presidents' Week recess, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie tweeted up a storm in support of a new soak-the-rich tax hike proposal backed by most of his fellow Assembly Democrats. In the process, he trotted out some familiar myths and misleadingly incomplete data to support the claim that wealthy New Yorkers don't pay their "fair share" of state income taxes. Read More

The poverty-fighting effectiveness of the state and federal Earned Income Tax Credit in New York is the focus of “Making Work Pay,” a new Issue Brief from the Empire Center for Public Policy. In light of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s push for a $15-an-hour statewide minimum wage, the briefing paper explains how the EITC already serves to boost low wages to levels well above the poverty line. Read More

The New York City Employee Retirement System (NYCERS) must provide the Empire Center with names and amounts of pensions paid to retired New York City uniformed employees, such as corrections officers, a Kings County Supreme Court judge ruled today. Read More