Research

New York's deepening fiscal crisis should refocus public attention on the need to reform the city's unsustainably costly package of generous retirement benefits for municipal workers. Read More

Mayor Bloomberg said in 2003 that "if New York City is a business, it isn't Wal-Mart. It isn't trying to be the lowest-priced product in the market. It's a high-end product, maybe even a luxury product." If so, then the don't bode well for consu Read More

Public school finance will be one of the most hotly contested battlegrounds in New York's coming state budget war.  From last June's of the Governor's (aka the Suozzi Commission), here is a reminder of one key factor driving up local school costs: Read More

In today's Times on the reaction of municipal labor unions to possible budget-cutting strategies, UFT President Randi Weingarten argues against any reform of generous pension benefits for municipal employees: “Here we have a s Read More

As a postscript to Nicole’s most recent post, which focused on New York City, it should be noted that New York’s state government doesn't immediately face a California-style cash crunch, either. The state stopped issuing short-term notes Read More

California may have to ask the federal government for a $7 billion loan by the end of the month just to pay for basic services like police and firefighting, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last Thursday. New York City readers may have shuddered, as the r Read More

The financial-market implosion and the coming transformation of the securities industry pose a risk to the national economy. But they especially imperil New York State, which for decades has built its budgets on the expectation of raising ever-greater revenues from a Wall Street that now no longer exists. Read More

Just belatedly realized something in crunching the equity- and debt-underwriting numbers: Between 2005 and 2007, American financial institutions produced $5.4 trillion worth of mortgage-backed and other asset-backed securities not Read More

As E.J. notes in the post below this one, Gov. Paterson says he thinks Wall Street bonuses could be down as much as 60 percent, higher than his budget office's expected 43 percent decline. To put this estimate in perspective: after the tech bubble Read More

After wavering on the issue in recent weeks, Governor Paterson today seemed to rule out tax increases as part of the solution to the state's growing budget problem -- at least for the next 18 months. "I don't think there should be any taxes at thi Read More

As shown below, the highest-earning 1 percent of taxpayers (those with incomes above $750,000 or so as of 2007) accounted for nearly 40 percent of New York's total state income tax liability last year -- up from around 27 percent in the mid-1990s.  Read More

As shown below, the highest-earning 1 percent of taxpayers (those with incomes above $750,000 or so as of 2007) accounted for nearly 40 percent of New York's total state income tax liability last year -- up from around 27 percent in the mid-1990s.  Read More