The economy is not roaring like in many places around the country, and there is an argument to be made that it never fully recovered from the Great Recession in 2008. E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center backs that up with lots of depressing facts in his paper, “One State, Two Stories.” Read More
Many factors are causing Medicaid costs to rise, including a 2017 increase in the minimum wage for health care workers, a cost for which Albany reimburses Medicaid providers. And according to the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative watchdog group, the federal Affordable Care Act pushed Medicaid enrollment up in the state by 31%. Nearly a third of New York residents receive some type of Medicaid benefit. As of 2016, New York’s per-enrollee spending rate on Medicare was just under $10,000, 10th highest among the states, according to the Empire Center. Read More
In the late 1990s, Nassau County was roiled by a financial crisis that resulted in the takeover of the county’s finances. By 2015, the county seemed to be out off the hole, but problems remained. Writing in The City Journal, E.J. McMahon claimed that ongoing budget deficits proved that “Long Islanders failed to learn from the mistakes of the big city...Instead, Nassau’s republican machine spent the boom years building a suburban version of the profligate... urban-governance model that almost bankrupted New York in the mid-seventies...The finances of Nassau and Suffolk counties...are likely to experience severe stress in any economic downturn over the next few years. Perhaps then, at last, real reform will happen.” Read More
Ken Girardin, a policy analyst for the fiscally conservative Empire Center, derided the annual event as "Subsidy Day" and said state leaders should instead focus on policy changes to make New York more competitive, including cutting taxes, controlling public employee compensation and streaming government regulations. Read More
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
New York has lost 1 million people to other states over the past decade, according to the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More
The Empire Center for New York State Policy noted a 1% reduction in most Medicaid payments was announced on New Year’s Eve via the Dec. 31 edition of the New York State Register. The move will save the state about $52 million from January through April, which is the last quarter of the state fiscal year, and another $248 million in the 2020-21 state fiscal year. 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