The Empire Center has updated its online Spend-O-Meter to reflect the record size of New York’s newly enacted $175.5 billion budget for fiscal 2020.
As of April 1, the fast-spinning Spend-O-Meter shows, the state government is spending at a rate equivalent to:
- $5,565 per second,
- $333,904 per minute,
- $480,821,971 per day,
- $3,375,000,000 per week, and
- $14,625,000,000 per month.
New York’s All Funds budget, which includes revenues from both state and federal sources, has more than doubled since fiscal year 1988, when the state spent $85.7 billion (in 2018 dollars).
The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies that can make New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.
Tags: Taxes and Spending
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