Research

The health insurance industry's rate applications for 2021, posted this month by state officials, reveal deep uncertainty about the long-term impact of the coronavirus pandemic on medical costs. Read More

The pandemic-driven decline in sales tax revenues accelerated in May, when the local share statewide was down 32 percent from last year's levels, the state comptroller's office reported today. Read More

While Governor Cuomo crawls further out on a fiscal limb, delaying threatened budget cuts in hopes of landing more federal aid, New York State is wrapping up its biggest short-term spring borrowing in 30 years. Read More

New York City’s police department has come under criticism in recent days, with some city officials saying NYPD funding should be reduced. But many of the same New York City Council members parroting calls to “defund” the NYPD were just a year ago pushing Mayor Bill de Blasio to give city cops a big pay hike. It’s a reminder that New York’s elected officials, no matter how principled, routinely don’t want to say “no” to public-sector unions. Read More

New York school districts are seeking voter approval of budgets that would raise their per-pupil spending by an average of more than four times the projected inflation rate. Most districts have proposed property tax hikes as high as the maximum allowed without supermajority overrides under the tax cap law. Read More

In the wake of George Floyd's death under a kneeling Minneapolis police officer, some New York State lawmakers are renewing calls for legislation designed to uncover police disciplinary records. But less than a year ago, state senators in both parties voted in favor of union-backed legislation that would make it harder to fire New York police officers credibly accused of using excessive force or other offenses. Read More

All but a few states imposed business lockdowns and "stay at home" orders in April. However, New York's private-sector job losses were well beyond the national norm—indicating the Empire State's economic recovery could lag behind the rest of the country. Read More

As if the coronavirus hadn’t done enough to disrupt education in New York, Governor Cuomo has injected even more confusion and uncertainty into the public school budgeting and board selection process across the state. Read More

On April 2, with New York’s COVID-19 curve still rising ominously, state lawmakers wrapped up a budget almost unchanged from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s pre-pandemic January proposal. With the economy in a coma and revenues crashing, the plan obviously was awash in red ink. Read More

It's official: the viral lockdown has been an economic catastrophe of historic proportions for New York State. Read More

New York State is deploying several thousand contact tracers, workers tasked with interviewing COVID-stricken residents and notifying the people they may have infected. But Governor Andrew Cuomo is taking a notable step that will likely make the effort faster and more efficient: he’s having someone else do the hiring. Read More

The final set of pre-pandemic U.S. Census population data for cities, towns and villages provides localized details on a familiar New York pattern: widespread decline upstate, and a few small pockets of growth amid the general stagnation downstate. Read More