E.J. McMahon, the founder of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank, said Cuomo has the power to almost unilaterally control Medicaid costs without the legislature’s input. Citing recent research from the think tank, McMahon argued the Cuomo administration created the budget gap by postponing certain Medicaid payments, failing to account for the rising minimum wage, and approving rate hikes for hospitals and nursing programs. Read More
Media Coverage
New York has lost 1 million people to other states over the past decade, according to the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More
Seethroughny.net is maintained by the Empire Center for Public Policy and is dedicated to providing New Yorkers a way to easily access government information. Read More
But E.J. McMahon, the research director at the right-leaning Empire Center for Public Policy, counters that “it is frequently misrepresented as representing some sort of minimal ‘living’ wage when it actually is used to impose union work rules, manning ratios and combined wage and benefit levels on all public jobs subject to it.” Read More
The district is faced with having to lay off 152 teachers by the end of this month in order to help close a $64.8 million budget deficit, unless another plan is devised by next week. According to an analysis by the Empire Center, the district in 2015-2016 (the last year figures were available) identified 146 teachers as “ineffective.” All or most of those teachers will be retained because of this policy, the Empire Center reports. Read More
Gov. Cuomo needs to addresses Medicaid shortfalls immediately. The problem is the rising cost of Medicaid, and according to the Empire Center, everything the governor has done to address Medicaid costs over the past few years has made things worse. Read More
An analysis from the Empire Center for New York State Policy noted that the Federal Reserve did issue a cautionary note on its analysis. “The Fed economists’ blog ends with an appropriate cautionary note,” the Empire Center wrote. “For one thing, even using their method, it’s possible that minimum wage increase reduced the numbers of hours worked, they acknowledge. (Hard hours-worked data at the county and sectoral level are not published by the state Labor Department.) Finally, as the Fed economists point out, ‘longer-term effects, if any, remain to be seen.’ It is certainly conceivable that minimum-wage differentials may affect decisions on firm location, business investment, lease renewal, and the like over a longer time horizon.'” Read More
"New Yorkers pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation," according to the report from the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank in New York. Read More
New York's Medicaid spending has always been high, if not the highest, among other states. In 2015, per capita spending on Medicaid was highest in New York, and 76% above the national average, according to an analysis from the Empire Center, a conservative think tank. Read More
E.J. McMahon, research director at the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank in Albany, said the budget division's assement "ignores the budgetary impact of the minimum wage." He noted that two weeks ago the division forecast a $6 billion budget gap for the 2021 state fiscal year, saying the main culprit was "the excess Medicaid spending" caused by the minimum wage increase. Read More
When a significant number of labor groups, coupled with the hospital and insurance industries, take a stance against legislation in Albany, that would usually be enough to stop the measure in its tracks. What is unusual about the New York Health Act is that it continues to be potentially viable, having passed previously in the state Assembly, and having gained a flock of Senate co-sponsors, said William Hammond, director of health policy for the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More
The Empire Center in October noted the global cap imposed on Medicaid spending by Cuomo and the Legislature in 2011, tying it to the medical inflation rate, has faltered amid loopholes and compliance issues. The state has postponed more than $1 billion in payments into the 2020 fiscal year. Read More