Legislative leaders are proposing an additional $4 billion tax on health insurance plans in the upcoming state budget – but withholding specifics of how it would work. Read More
Research
The SUNY-owned hospital in Brooklyn facing a newly announced downsizing plan has seen its patient volume and revenue plunge over the past decade, according to a review of its financial reports. Read More
While New York Attorney General Letitia James’s name has dominated much of the news in 2024 already, one of the most noteworthy instances did not garner nearly enough attention. In mid-February, —which many parents know as the company that admini Read More
This report analyzes how well 66 executive branch agencies are using the internet and technology platforms to meet their FOIL obligations (see table below). It evaluates how user-friendly agency websites are for making FOIL requests. And it examines to what extent agencies are using, or not using, technology to make both the agency’s and the public’s FOIL experiences better. Read More
Nearly four full years since the COVID-19 lockdown of March 2020, statewide private employment in New York has finally (barely) returned to pre-pandemic levels—but it's hardly the "full economic recovery" touted by Governor Hochul in a self-congratulatory "New York is Back" press release. Read More
As state budget preparations head into their final weeks, a confrontation is brewing over Medicaid, the state-run health plan for the low-income and disabled. Governor Hochul has holding the state’s $36 billion share of Medicaid funding essenti Read More
New Yorkers got a thorough lesson on the difference between a constitutional amendment and a law. Read More
The number of New York residents with incomes above $1 million hit a new high in the Wall Street boom year of 2021—but the state's share of all U.S. income millionaires dropped lower, according to new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data released to Read More
The headlong, secretive process around implementing New York's 2019 Climate Act – inherited from a governor who resigned in disgrace – runs the risk of saddling New Yorkers with both a less reliable electrical grid and rules across the entire economy that impose enormous expense. Read More
New York State's budget-making process sometimes works like a closed loop, as interest groups on the receiving end of state spending reinvest a portion of their proceeds to lobby Albany for still more money. Read More
The 2023 edition of What They Make, the Empire Center’s annual report on public payrolls, allows New York taxpayers to compare this key element of local government costs around the state. Read More
New York in 2022 imposed the largest unfunded mandate on schools in a generation, requiring them to replace their buses with electric models. New price data indicate the cost is still rising. Read More