The Fiscal Policy Institute estimated in 2004 that the annual budget for
a three-person household would be $41,600. Two full-time, minimum-wage earners
would earn only $30,000, not accounting for taxes withheld.
This is neither fair nor sustainable.
Rather than talk about a minimum wage, consider the concept of "a living
wage."
January 30, 2012.
Assembly sets minimum-wage goal at $8.50. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver
unveiled a bill Monday to push the state's $7.25-an-hour minimum wage up 17% and
index it to inflation.
By Daniel Massey,crainsnewyork.com.
The Fiscal Policy Institute, which has been supportive of minimum wage
increases, argues that people who earn the minimum wage tend to spend all the
additional money they receive, which pumps money into the economy. The extra
spending will create jobs and benefit the mom-and-pop shops that opponents of
an increase say will be most hurt by a higher minimum wage, said James A.
Parrott, the chief economist at the institute.
"They're going to be spending more money in local communities, where
they live," Mr. Parrott said.
January 1, 2012.
Brooklyn blooms again, but not for all. Atlantic Yards project caps a decade
of growth for borough, yet some areas remain mired in poverty. By Patrick Wall,
Crain's New York Business.
The Fiscal Policy Institute is recommending the governor and Legislature
undertake corporate-tax reform and close business-tax loopholes and
"preferences," Mauro said. That could be done before a new commission that's
being created to review the tax code completes its work, he said.
"I don't think you have to wait for a commission to close some of the
most egregious loopholes and preferences," he said.
December 13, 2011.
Recession hit the rich, study of the 1% finds. If 2007 was the best of times
for the city's highest earners, 2009 was a downer, as their average income fell
42%, according to an analysis by the Independent Budget Office. Their tax burden
was modestly higher than their share of city dwellers' income. By Daniel Massey,
Crain's New York Business.
James Parrott, chief economist of the left-leaning Fiscal Policy
Institute, said that when residential property and sales taxes were included,
the top 1% actually pay less than their share of taxes. Mr. Parrott authored a
report last December on income inequality in the city that showed the top 1%
earned 45% of the income but paid just 34% of the combined personal income,
residential property and sales taxes in 2007.
James Parrott, deputy director and chief economist at the Fiscal Policy
Institute, says the tax plan takes a stab at creating more progressive tax
brackets, but his group had proposed an alternative he says would have
generated more than double the yearly revenue.
December 6, 2011.
NY aims to raise taxes on rich, give middle-class a cut. New York's
millionaires will pay higher taxes while 4.4 million middle-class and
upper-income New Yorkers will get tax cuts, under a reform plan the governor and
legislature unveiled on Tuesday. By Joan Gralla, Reuters.
Middle-class taxpayers are expected to save a total of $690 million.
Millionaires can look forward to the expiration of the new top rate on
December 31, 2014. The temporary top rate is about half of the more than 15
percent rate the wealthy paid in the 1970s, according to the Fiscal Policy
Institute.
Frank Mauro of the labor-backed Fiscal Policy Institute said Cuomo's
plan "is certainly going in the right direction." He said the tax rates have
leveled for incomes over $500,000 a year. More brackets at higher incomes mean
more opportunities to tax wealthier New Yorkers at a higher rate.
December 6, 2011.
Cuomo, lawmakers agree on new taxes, spending. A lightning-fast deal struck
on Tuesday between Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate
Majority Leader Dean Skelos adds three more years to the millionaire's tax for
$2 million earners. Others will get a tax cut. By Jeremy Smerd,
crainsnewyork.com.
"If you pay for tax cuts for the middle class by taking money from the
top, that will boost spending and help out the economy," said James Parrott,
chief economist of the liberal Fiscal Policy Institute. "It's an approach that
we would pursue, and in fact we've been saying this for a long time."
The last column shows a proposal floated last night by the Fiscal Policy
Institute, a labor-backed think tank. It would leave untouched the rates for
those of us earning less than $200,000 but roll back taxes for folks making
between $200,000 and $665,000. It then raises taxes as high as 9.99 percent on
New Yorkers reporting over $100 million in income.
The group proposes New York enact a one percent increase on income-tax
rates—from 6.85 to 7.85 percent - for those earning more than $665,000, which
is the top 1 percent of earners, according to the state.
That increase, coupled with another one percent increase at $1 million,
and one half of one percent increments at $5 million and $10 million, the
state could generate between $4.4 billion and $5.1 billion per year, the group
claims.
"New York State is at a crossroads," the report states. "Our tax
structure is scheduled to change in a way that will render state revenues
inadequate for the budget years ahead."
December 4, 2011.
Fairer taxes, more jobs: Gov. Cuomo needs to look out for the unemployed. An
op ed by
James Parrott and Frank Mauro, New York Daily News.
New York is in a state of inequality. But we can balance the budget, provide
real middle class tax relief and a boost to job creation, all through sensible
income tax reform.
The influence of money in politics is one of the greatest factors behind
the gap between the superrich and the poor, said James Parrott, chief
economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute in New York, which published a report
last year on economic disparity [Grow Together or Pull
Further Apart? Income Concentration Trends in New York, December 13, 2010].
Cuomo, whose approval ratings have hovered near and above 70 percent for
months, would lose stature among business leaders for abandoning his pledge on
taxes.
But it would hardly mark the end of Cuomo’s political world; in one poll
after another, large majorities of voters have backed higher taxes on the
rich. More impetus came Tuesday, in a report from the Fiscal Policy Institute
... The wealthiest 1 percent accounted for 35 percent of the state’s income in
2007; about 31 percent in 2008.
November 18, 2011.
One Set of Facts, One Unavoidable Conclusion. An op ed by
Maryann Sinclair Slutsky, Plainview-Old Bethpage Herald. (Also ran in other
Anton Community Newspapers on Long Island.) Slutsky is the campaign director of
Long Island Wins.
Mauro, however, is more concerned by the governor's missed deadline on
Oct. 31 to provide an updated midyear financial plan. It would track the
revenues and spending of the first six months of the fiscal year that began
April 1 under Cuomo's first budget.
"I don't think that there is a justification for not doing as much of
the quarterly update as you can," Mauro said. "If they don't want to do their
forecast now, that's one thing. But the quarterly updates and financial plan
serve other purposes. They provide information that is more up to date on what
actually happened."
There is plenty of evidence that immigration helps to fuel the U.S.
economy, just as it has throughout our history. Immigrants continue to play an
important role in the economy as workers, entrepreneurs, taxpayers, and
consumers. However, most observers agree that our current immigration system
is outdated and dysfunctional, making it more difficult for the U.S. to
compete in the global marketplace. The last time Congress made significant
changes to the employment-based immigration system was 1990, when the
Immigration Act of 1990 created the five-tiered employment-based immigration
system and the numerical limits used today.
Our immigration system needs to be updated and overhauled, but inflamed
rhetoric often obscures reform efforts. The first step in reforming our
immigration system is to understand the basic facts surrounding the debate.
This report seeks to answer some basic questions about the role of immigration
in today's economy.
Community and union leaders rally against state legislative proposal to
give tax break to millionaires in Hicksville, Oct. 18, 2011. Photo: Howard Schnapp.
But James Parrott, deputy director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, said that
of 880,000 individual tax returns reporting small-business earnings or losses in
2008, only 0.7% had adjusted gross incomes of $1 million or more. Partnership
income is reported separately.
Some leaders of the movement, called "99 New York," debunked the decline
of millionaires in 2009, saying other statistics and the state's own estimates
show that incomes for the rich have grown since then.
"2008 and 2009 were both years when there was a decline in the number of
high-income returns both nationally and in New York. And in 2010, the recovery
began," said Frank Mauro, executive director of the labor-backed Fiscal Policy
Institute based in Albany.
Mauro pointed to statistics from the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau
of Economic Analysis that showed New York had the fourth highest growth in
earnings in the country in 2010.
Advocates of the surcharge argue that the additional revenue it raises
is necessary to offset the cuts the state has made to close its budget gap.
Next year's deficit is estimated at $2.5 billion.
"Some of that $5 billion you would get if you extended the tax would
significantly moderate further cuts in the budget and would allow some
restoration of past cuts or make resources available for job creation
investments and infrastructure," said James Parrott, chief economist of the
Fiscal Policy Institute.
File this under Things You Probably Could Have Guessed After Just Looking
Around: A new study confirms that immigrants are the very economic backbone of
New York.
Two years after the reported "recovery," 1.4 million, or one in every
seven, New York workers is unemployed, underemployed or has given up looking
for work, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute.
"Half of New York's unemployed have been out of work for more than six
months, and 29 percent have been jobless for a year or more," according to the
Fiscal Policy Institute.
August 31, 2011.
NY's
recovery fades, but still exceeds nation's. Two reports and a survey
released Wednesday paint a disheartening picture of the state's post-recession
economy. But most other states are doing even worse, the analysis shows.
By Daniel Massey,crainsnewyork.com.
July 20, 2011.
Young New
Yorkers powered the recovery. City dwellers between the ages of 16 and 27
recorded almost all of the employment gains in the first year of the city's
recovery, while workers 55 and older suffered, a new report shows. By Daniel
Massey, crainsnewyork.com.
In Massachusetts, local governments adopt one budget that includes
municipal and school spending. Voters make the decision on all overrides.
Proposition 21/2 is less restrictive than New York's new cap, said Frank
Mauro, executive director of the labor-backed Fiscal Policy Institute in
Albany.
As a result, the average annual growth in Massachusetts' property tax
revenue was about 5.5 percent a year between 1981-82 and 2009-10, he wrote in
a report last month.
New York's cap "would undermine the quality of the entire array of
locally funded public services while providing very little relief, if any, to
those homeowners who are most overburdened by real property taxes," he wrote.
The Massachusetts cap includes some exemptions and a less stringent
override provision - a simple majority, Mauro said.
June 30, 2011.
Property tax cap proves elusive. Ongoing debate: Some say that it won't do
enough, others believe the concept is too restrictive. By Brian Amaral,
Watertown Daily Times.
June 30, 2011.
City jobs growing, real
wages shrinking. New York City workers are growing in number, but their pay
is not keeping pace with inflation, data released Thursday show. Average weekly
wages here only rose 1.3% in a year.
By Daniel Massey,
crainsnewyork.com.
June 29, 2011.
The 2011-2012 City Budget on "Inside City Hall." Brooklyn Councilman Lewis
Fidler and Deputy Director and Chief Economist of the Fiscal Policy Institute
James Parrott discuss the just-passed $66 billion city budget.
Hosted by Errol Louis on NY1.
June 22, 2011.
Brooklyn tops boroughs in immigrant entrepreneurs. A Brooklyn Chamber of
Commerce report said immigrants constitute 50% of all "incorporated employed
individuals."
By Jermaine Taylor,
Crain's New York Business.
"Both statewide and in the Capital Region, the reduction in government
employees is pretty significant, and it's putting a drag on the local
economy," said Frank Mauro, an economist at the Latham-based Fiscal Policy
Institute. The job losses in the public sector almost cancel out the gains, he
said. "Reducing government employment doesn't stimulate the economy," he said.
"There would be more private sector jobs if it weren't for the government
cuts."
Frank Mauro, of the Albany-based Fiscal Policy Institute, said that even
with the cap, Massachusetts' property-tax revenue had increased at roughly the
same pace as New York’s.
"If you are looking to Massachusetts for salvation you are diagnosing
the problem wrong," Mauro said. "Growth in New York and Massachusetts have
been about the same."
May 20, 2011.
Immigrant Businesses Power Long Island. An op ed by Maryann Sinclair Slutsky
of Long Island Wins, Syosset-Jericho Tribune. Also in the Farmingdale Observer,
Garden City Life, Glen Cove Record-Pilot, Hicksville Illustrated News. Levittown
Tribune, Manhasset Press, Massapequan Observer, Mineola American, Oyster Bay
Enterprise, Plainview-Old Bethpage Herald, and the Westbury Times.
Newsweek is promoting Suketu Mehta's short
piece on New York as a celebration of the role of immigrants in the city’s
revival. But the piece is really a celebration of inequality.
"The single most important thing needed to help the working poor rise
out of poverty is an increase in wages. There is nothing in this study that
tells us how we are going to get there," said James Parrott of the Fiscal
Policy Institute.
May 9, 2011.
Issue
Spotlight: Pensions. Brief prepared statements from FPI's Frank Mauro, Danny
Donohue (CSEA), Teresa Ghilarducci (The New School) and E.J. McMahon (Empire
Center). The Capitol.
May 9, 2011.
Living wage bill would kill city jobs, study says. In expected result, a $1
million analysis commissioned by the Bloomberg administration supports the
mayor's view that mandating higher wages is a bad idea. By Daniel Massey,
crainsnewyork.com.
"It is unfortunate that the EDC study failed to look at
well-known factors such as the cost of public subsidies received by low-wage
workers, or the positive productivity effects of better wages, in assessing
how city policies can improve the living standards of low-wage workers," said
James Parrott, deputy director and chief economist at the Fiscal Policy
Institute, a liberal think tank.
"This is reform at the edges," Frank Mauro, executive director of the
union-backed Fiscal Policy Institute, said of the cap on STAR benefits.
"The fundamental illogic of STAR remains. But the problem is because it
gives benefits to almost everyone in the state, it's a very popular program
and difficult to reform."
According to a devastating report by the Fiscal Policy Institute
prepared for the New York Women's Foundation, "A Harder Struggle, Fewer
Opportunities," the Cuomo budget will slash funding for nonresidential
domestic violence programs and summer youth employment programs; defund 105
New York City senior centers; cut $7 million in childcare services for welfare
recipients; eliminate transitional jobs programs and childcare for low-income
college students; and reduce funding for after-school programs as well as the
Nurse-Family Partnership home visiting program.
"We could be seeing the loss of thousands of middle-income jobs in New
York City," said James Parrott, chief economist at the Fiscal Policy
Institute, a liberal think tank based in New York.
Cutbacks in public sector jobs could "act as a brake on recovery," Mr.
Parrott warned, adding that "the reduction in state government contracts for
social services, senior services and child welfare that go to non-profit
organizations are [also] likely to mean job cutbacks in the private sector as
well."
Mayor Mike Bloomberg opposed the measures, saying rich people would
leave. Now he touts the city's recovery. Job growth has been strong in the
past 12 months, and city unemployment has dipped below the national average, a
March 21 report by the city comptroller noted. City revenues grew in fiscal
2010 for the first time in three years. And New York had the fastest net
earnings growth, 4.1%, of any state last year. "It doesn't look like there's
any negative from [the increased] rates," said James Parrott, chief economist
of the pro-surcharge Fiscal Policy Institute.
"The mayor's proposed budget calls for dramatic cuts in areas like
education and human services, [but] how can we close child care centers and
cut services for the city's seniors yet lavish money on low-wage employers?"
said Michele Mattingly, research associate at the Fiscal Policy Institute.
March 10, 2011.
Opinion: Surcharge doesn't erode tax base. An op ed by Douglas Massey, a
professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, and Howard
Chernick, a professor of economics at Hunter College and the Graduate Center,
City University of New York.
According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, based on inflation-adjusted
dollars, New York State funding for the SUNY state-operated campuses is 11
percent higher than it was in 1991, while enrollment is 16 percent higher.
There is no question those wealthy taxpayers can afford to do more. The New
York Fiscal Policy Institute reports that in 2007, the top 1 percent of state
tax filers accounted for nearly 35 percent of all state income - revealing a
huge and destructive rich-poor divide. Without some added tax revenue, the
poorest students in New York will show up at schools with fewer tools than ever.
The poor will struggle - and sometimes fail - to find the medical care they
need. With higher tuition in state universities, more students will be priced
out of the college education they need to become the productive workers our
state needs.
January 28, 2011. The
Direction of Economic Development in New York State. The Capitol Report with
Susan Arbetter. On WBNG (Binghamton), WFFF (Plattsburgh), WKBW (Buffalo), WROC
(Rochester), WENY (Elmira), WSTM (Syracuse/Watertown), WSTT (Erie, PA), WKTV
(Utica).
"When government resists deep cuts, when we appropriately tax the wealthiest
New Yorkers and keep on public employees and keep on supporting the private
sector by keeping government intact, we actually see a better and stronger
recovery," said Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton, D-Ithaca ...
A report last month from the Fiscal Policy Institute, a union-backed group,
found that the richest 1 percent of households increased their share of income
in New York from 10 percent in 1980 to 35 percent in 2007.
January 20, 2011.
New York
City jobless rate falls below 9%. Local unemployment fell to 8.9% in
December. New Yorkers haven't seen that number in 19 months. Still, the latest
data suggest the pace of the city's recovery may be slowing. By
Daniel Massey, crainsnewyork.com.
January 19, 2011.
City Talk,
CUNY-TV's
talk show on New York City politics and civic affairs. Host Doug Muzzio of
Baruch University interviews FPI's James Parrott.
January 4, 2011. The
People's State of the State. The Capitol Report with Susan Arbetter. On WBNG
(Binghamton), WFFF (Plattsburgh), WKBW (Buffalo), WROC (Rochester), WENY
(Elmira), WSTM (Syracuse/Watertown), WSTT (Erie, PA), WKTV (Utica).
December 8, 2010.
Mayor
touts NYC job growth as model for U.S. Sounding almost like a presidential
candidate, Mayor Michael Bloomberg calls on Washington to "stop demagoguing" on
the economy and do things more like, well, he does. By Daniel Massey, crainsnewyork.com.
December 5, 2010. City, state woes bode ill
for labor. Public-sector unions face setbacks in 2011 as contracts expire.
By Erik Engquist, Crain's New York Business.
November 28, 2010.
Can NY
afford its higher education? Schools fear the old state-funded model is
broken. By Daniel Massey and Miriam Kreinin Souccar, Crain's New York Business.
November 26, 2010.
Andrew Cuomo getting plenty advice on $9B deficit. Rochester Democrat and
Chronicle. Also in the Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin, Poughkeepsie Journal,
Journal News, Elmira Star-Gazette, and Ithaca Journal.
Correction: General Fund spending is
projected by the New York State Division of the Budget to increase by $9
billion in 2011-2012, a 23.2 percent increase (not 12 percent as reported in the
article).
November 18, 2010.
City
unemployment drops to 9.2% in October. Widespread gains in private-sector
jobs more than compensate for cuts in public payrolls, state labor department
finds; city adds nearly 10,000 jobs for the month. By Daniel Massey,
Crain's New York Business.
November 16, 2010.
Wall
Street profits on pace to hit $19B. What recession? Despite headwinds caused
by weak recovery, regulatory reform and pared payrolls, New York's financial
industry is on track to post its fourth most profitable year ever. By Daniel
Massey,
Crain's New York Business.
November 14, 2010. Cuomo's tax-cut
conundrums. By Erik Engquist and Jeremy Smerd, Crain's New York Business.
October 21, 2010.
City unemployment rate dipped in Sept. NYC jobless rate fell slightly to
9.3% last month, but don't break out the champagne yet, as 17,000 private sector
jobs also disappeared at summer's end; average weekly wage also slips. By Daniel
Massey,
crainsnewyork.com.
The U.S. income disparity, as measured by the international Gini
index, reached its highest level since the Census Bureau began
tracking household income in 1967.
New York, along with Texas and Connecticut, was among the states in
which income inequality was greater than that of the U.S. - the gap in
Westchester County was greater than the state's.
The wide disparity in Westchester is not surprising, considering
the county's extreme diversity, said James Parrott, the New York
City-based deputy director and chief economist with the Fiscal Policy
Institute, a nonpartisan research and education organization.
Still, he said, the state and nation have experienced a "dramatic
concentration" of income over the past three decades - bringing it
back to levels not seen since the stock market crash of 1929.
"If anything, the trend has accelerated in the past 10 years,"
Parrott said. "And because of the smaller middle class, there is a
less stable economy that is more prone to boom or bust cycles."
Median household incomes also fell at a greater rate locally than
statewide.
September 16, 2010.
Big spike
in NY's poverty rate reported. More than 3 million people here lived in
poverty last year, the Census Bureau reports. That's defined as a family of four
making $21,954 or less in a year.
By Daniel Massey, Crain's New York Business.
September 3, 2010.
Latest Job Numbers. Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC.
Former Congressional Budget Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin and economist
James Parrott of the Fiscal Policy Institute break down the latest monthly jobs
report.
August 31, 2010.
NY cracks down on
building trade's "cash" economy.
New York state's construction companies will be subject to new criminal
and civil penalties if they misclassify employees as contractors to underpay
them or dodge taxes, Governor David Paterson said on Tuesday.
Reported by Joan Gralla for Reuters. Also -
CNBC,
WAMC (Albany),
WXXI (Rochester),
WRVO (Oswego).
The Fiscal Policy Institute, the union-backed research group,
isn't feeling sympathy for the business community, however. It
released a report in April that said one of the reasons for the
state's fiscal woes was that tax revenues from Wall Street are down -
and not because Wall Street firms are hurting for profits.
Wall Street made $61.4 billion last year, nearly triple its
previous record in 2000, largely because of a taxpayer-funded bailout,
the institute said.
Mauro, the group's executive director, said Wall Street firms
have been able to avoid paying taxes on much of those profits because
the state allows companies to use losses in previous years to reduce
their tax liability in future years. So Wall Street is using losses
from 2007 and 2008 to shield its current high profits from taxes, he
said.
"It's an ordinary part of the game," he said. "They're
well-accustomed to carrying losses forward and back, so I don't think
this will be devastating to them.
The findings of the report [The Self Sufficiency
Standard for New York City 2010] imply a stark future for the city if
most of its largest occupations do not pay median wages that allow an adult
employed full-time to meet basic needs, let alone to support a family. Public
policy in recent years has stressed the primacy of employment over public
support to address poverty, yet too many of New York's jobs simply do not pay
enough for workers to raise themselves and their families to a modest standard
of living.
July 1, 2010.
Debate on the New York State Budget. Susan Arbetter of the Capitol Pressroom
hosts a discussion with FPI's Frank Mauro, David Liebschutz of the Center For
Governmental Policy and EJ McMahon of the Empire Center for New York State
Policy. (Segment begins at about 25:28.)
Frank Mauro of the left-leaning Fiscal Policy Institute, said states face
tough choices during a recession, but a tax increase on top earners is the least
damaging option.
"I think a lot of elected officials recognize tax increases aren't ideal
during a downturn, but what they seem to miss is that while tax increases don't
help during a recession, but spending cuts don't help either," Mauro said. "They
have to come up with the least damaging mix of spending cuts and tax increases."
June 21, 2010.
Spend Now, Deal with Deficit Later? FPI chief economist and deputy director
James Parrott participated in a spirited debate on the Fox business program,
Varney and Company. (00:6:34)
After adjusting for seasonal changes, the city added 77,000 jobs
in 2010's first five months, said James Parrott, chief economist at
the Fiscal Policy Institute. "It's not a glowing report," Mr. Parrott
said. "There is a continued private sector growth, but it was more
moderate."
June 17, 2010.
NYC's
jobless rate keeps falling. May unemployment dips to 9.6% from 9.8% in April
and the city's workforce climbs to over 4 million as economy rebounds quickly.
By Daniel Massey, Crain's New York Business.
June 15, 2010.
Donkey Show. Andrew Cuomo's Biggest Rival Won't Be the G.O.P. It's Shelley
Silver and the old-school Dems in his race to Governor. By Wayne Barrett,
Village Voice.
June 14, 2010.
Even if New York averts government shutdown, its budget woes escalate. New
York State lawmakers are likely to approve another short-term fix to prevent a
threatened government shutdown. Delay in closing an $8.5 billion budget gap is
only making things worse, some analysts say. By Ron Scherer, Christian Science
Monitor.
Within the weekly spending measures, however, are glimpses of
what the Empire State may look like if state officials ever do bridge
a $8.5 billion spending gap, second only to California for the highest
in the nation. The snapshot is of a state that will be spending less
money on hospitals, education, and the environment. [...]
"It most likely means a lower quality of life for New Yorkers,"
says Frank Mauro, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute in
Albany, N.Y. "The way they are balancing the budget now is similar to
the 1990s, when there were deep service cuts."
James Parrott of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a liberal think
tank, said the IBO's numbers appeared to be correct but were a
snapshot in time.
"They tell you more about 2008 profits and don't say anything
about 2009," he said. "They're meaningful as a measure of the depths
of the recession. They're not a reflection of the banner year Wall
Street had in 2009."
The liberal Fiscal Policy Institute slammed Bloomberg's reliance
on Wall Street, saying he should focus on bringing up the subpoverty-level
wages of the poorest working New Yorkers.
"Relying on better wages for every New Yorker makes a lot more
sense as an economic recovery strategy than waiting for Wall Street
bonuses to trickle down," wrote FPI economist James Parrott.
Frank Mauro, head of the labor-backed Fiscal Policy Institute in New York,
said a cap would perpetuate current funding inequities among school districts.
"When you apply a percentage cap to change, you institutionalize the disparities
and you make them worse," Mauro said. He said a circuit-breaker system would
provide relief to the most overburdened homeowners.
April 19, 2010. Pataki's Policies Haunt Albany: The New York State
Budget Crisis. Frank Mauro spoke with Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash, co-hosts of
Building Bridges on WBAI.
Listen to
the podcast >>
(Segment starts at about 44:50.)
April 16, 2010.
The Week in Immigration News. By Julissa Treviño, the Washington
Independent, a webpaper owned by a network of state-based online news sites
founded by the Center for Independent Media.
April 12, 2010.
Look to Wall Street for help.
An op ed by Frank Mauro, FPI's executive director, and
Ron Deutsch of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, Albany Times-Union.
With New York, like other states, still reeling from a
devastating national recession, Gov. David Paterson and the
Legislature are proposing budget plans that rely overwhelmingly on
cuts to essential public services. This, they imply, would hurt the
economy less than a more balanced approach that includes some
economically sensible revenue choices. Nothing could be further from
economic reality.
Why doesn't President Simpson advocate for supporting public
education, rather than for privatizing it? A modest increase in state
income tax rates, aimed primarily at those wealthy New Yorkers whose
rates have been cut so dramatically in the past thirty years, would
save SUNY and the rest of the state's public responsibilities.
March 27, 2010. All Things New York, WWRL. Host Rennie Bishop and David
Dyssegaard Kallick discussed the diverse occupations of New York immigrants from
Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
March 17, 2010. The Ravitch Plan. Frank Mauro discussed the budget
process reforms recommended by Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch with host
Bill Henning on "The Communiqué,"
on WNYE-FM (91.5 FM), New York City.
March 12, 2010. Raise Taxes to Balance the Budget.
Capitol Tonight.
In discussing Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch's fiscal reform
plan, FPI Executive Director Frank Mauro explained why tax increases should be
part of a balanced approach to closing New York State's projected budget gap.
March 11, 2010.
The
Ravitch Plan. Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC. James Parrott, FPI's Deputy Director
and Chief Economist, discussed
Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch's plan to reform the New
York State budget process and to borrow money to help solve New York State's
fiscal problems.
February 12, 2010.
An immigrant stimulus to the economy. By Justin Akers Chacon, a professor of
U.S. history and Chicano studies in San Diego, for the Progressive Media
Project.
February 2, 2010. Progressive Tax
Reform. An editorial from El Diario / La Prensa. In
Spanish and
English.
New York State and City can minimize the devastating effects
of looming budget cuts by ushering in overdue tax reform.
In New York City, a single person with an income of $30,000
pays the same marginal tax rate as a person with an income of $30
million. This absurdity is one of the reasons why organizations such
as the Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) have called for more
progressive taxation - where the tax rate increases with increases
in taxable income.
"You can see in San Diego, which is a similar story to other
places, that although there is a concentration of immigrants in
lower wage occupations … there is also a very strong representation
of immigrants in the higher end occupations," said David Dyssegaard
Kallick, Fiscal Policy Institute's director of the immigration
research initiative. "It shows that immigrants are really pulling
their own weight."
January 22, 2010.
States of Pain.
The fiscal crises unfolding in legislatures across the country will only get
worse in 2010. By Chris Maisano, In These Times.
The budget deficits in New York and other states do need to be brought
under control. But is the slash-and-burn approach championed by Paterson and
austerity advocates from both parties the only option? James Parrott, Deputy
Director and Chief Economist of New York’s labor-oriented Fiscal Policy
Institute (FPI), doesn't think so.
"The cuts proposed by Paterson will result in an even worse economy with
higher unemployment and greater hardship among low-income populations," says
Parrott. The governor and his allies see supposedly excessive social spending
and state employee pay and benefits as the root of the crisis, but according
to Parrott, "the real culprit is the recession-related revenue falloff" and
"excessive tax cuts in the 1990s that have eroded the state's tax base by
roughly $20 billion per year."
Instead of painful cuts to public spending, Parrott argues that New
York's budget crisis can be solved more soundly and humanely by "pressing for
more federal state and local fiscal relief, closing business tax loopholes and
curtailing wasteful tax giveaway economic development programs, and increasing
reliance on a progressive personal income tax."
January 21, 2010.
NYC
unemployment spikes to 10.6%. The city's jobless rate is up from 7% in
December 2008, and at its highest level in nearly 17 years. If you want evidence
that Wall Street's rebound has lifted the local economy, you'll just have to
wait. By Daniel Massey, crainsnewyork.com.
January 20, 2010.
Paterson's 'Budget
of Necessity.' From New York Now's live coverage of the state budget
release, a brief clip featuring Frank Mauro, the executive director of the
Fiscal Policy Institute, and David Liebschutz, the director of strategic
planning and analysis at the Center for Governmental Research. [2:25].
Video >>
"In a recession, states don’t have any good choices," said
Frank Mauro, executive director of the Albany, New York- based
Fiscal Policy Institute. "States have to balance their budgets in
good times and in bad, so what states have to do is either cut
spending or increase taxes, both of which put additional drag on the
economy."
January 14, 2010.
New York State Budget Fix-up Debate. New York State is in the red. How did
the Empire State get into such a financial mess? And could it go the way of
California? FPI's James Parrott and
Josh Barro of the Manhattan Institute discuss best ways address the
state's budget problems on Canada's Business News Network.
Video segment [9:04]. Related:
BNN speaks to Ken Adams of the Business Council of New York
[8:22] and
to with Moody's analyst Emily Raimes
[5:55].
Two factors are driving immigrant economic output, says David
Dyssegaard Kallick, director of the Fiscal Policy Institute's
Immigration Research Initiative: Immigrants are much more likely to
be of prime working age than their U.S-born counterparts, and they
work in a broad range of jobs.
"One of the more striking things is how much immigrants are
contributing, up and down the economic spectrum," he said. "Yes,
there are a good number of taxi drivers and restaurant workers, but
also a large portion of doctors and engineers."
As documented by the Fiscal Policy Institute, immigration has, in fact,
been a vital force in the American economy. Even in tough times, immigrants
boost or replenish the labor pool and inject entrepreneurial energy that opens
businesses and creates jobs.
...
Clearly, the larger the number of immigrants, the greater the economic
activity. But the reverse is also true. Shutting the borders and throwing out
those who have built productive lives here would do untold damage to the
country. Maintaining the United States as an immigrant-friendly nation is
essential to our economic health.
Others, though, have said Paterson was overplaying the Moody's warning.
The labor-backed Fiscal Policy Institute and New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness
sent a letter to lawmakers noting that Moody's, in their report, also say they
believe that Wall Street bonuses, and their attendant tax revenues, might be
higher than the governor has predicted.
"There is just no meaningful data that show high earners are deserting
New York," says James Parrott, deputy director and chief economist of the
Fiscal Policy Institute, a think tank that supported the increase. "The
Rockefeller Institute data, together with the looming increase in Wall Street
bonuses, reaffirm the wisdom of a high-income PIT surcharge."
November 19, 2009.
Worst month of job losses since last December. The numbers for October were
dismal: 15,600 jobs shed just about everywhere in NYC - construction,
securities, restaurants, retail, even dry cleaners and repair shops. By Daniel
Massey,
Crain's New York Business.
On the day the state jobs report was released, the Fiscal Policy
Institute put out a report saying that a "tale of two recessions" was emerging
in the city. As Wall Street prepares for year-end bonus season, some 40% of
the city's more than 400,000 unemployed have been out of work for six months
or longer. And the city's "real" unemployment rate - which includes
discouraged workers and those involuntarily working part time -has hit 16%.
"With each passing day, the disconnect grows," said James Parrott, the
institute's chief economist. "Wall Street is recovering, but in the boroughs
and neighborhoods, unemployment has doubled in the past year."
"The inconsistency is that the governor is arguing that school districts
should use their fund balances but he doesn't want to use his," said Frank
Mauro of the Fiscal Policy Institute.
November 17, 2009.
Soup
kitchens: 'Business' is up 15%. City Harvest says "recession's aftershocks"
are still being felt in New York City communities as more New Yorkers are going
hungry. By Miriam Kreinin Souccar,
Crain's New York Business.
November 13, 2009.
Job
numbers spike in Bronx. The Bronx was the only NYC boro to see its jobs
numbers spike in the first quarter. That's right: The Bronx. Only three counties
in U.S. delivered better numbers.
By Daniel Massey,
Crain's New York Business.
James Parrott of the Fiscal Policy Institute said Paterson's plan is
potentially disastrous for New York's economy. Parrot estimates that the state
could lose 25,000 jobs if the cuts to education and health care funding go
through. He said the job loss will not "prime" New York's economy, as Paterson
has said his cuts will do, but hurt it.
The bottom line: The FPI feels the governor's reduction plan will do
extreme damage to state's recovery, and a state spending cap would be even
worse. The FPI recommends tapping the "rainy-day fund," which Gov. Paterson
has resisted all down the line.
Frank Mauro, Director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a
non-partisan research and education organization focusing on tax, budget, and
economic issues, has argued that the Governor’s corrective action plan is a
shortsighted policy recommendation that will undermine the State’s attempts at
economic recovery. Taking $1.8 billion of demand out of New York's economy
will disrupt recovery efforts by impacting spending on wages, goods, and
services.
The official unemployment rate does not count all people who are out of
work, only those who are actively seeking full-time jobs. If all out-of-work
New Yorkers were included, the city’s unemployment rate would be 15.8 percent,
according to James Parrott, the chief economist for the Fiscal Policy
Institute, a research group that focuses on tax, budget and economic issues.
The number of residential property-tax exemptions that the state allows
local governments to opt into has grown, said Frank Mauro, executive director
of the Fiscal Policy Institute.
"From a tax fairness perspective, I think the issue that needs to be
settled is, do residential exemptions overall make the property-tax system
more fair or less fair," he said.
October 11, 2009.
Mayor's economy: Grades are in. Bloomberg gets an A for quality of life, a C
for budget. By Daniel Massey, Crain's New York Business.
Anthony Rocco gets a $165 weekly unemployment check, not enough to cover
the most basic necessities like rent or a bus pass. The 28-year-old Mount
Vernon resident, who is taking classes at Concordia College, was among more
than 216,400 people who lost their jobs in New York state in the past year.
New York lags behind other states in the rate that it compensates laid-off
workers, according to a report. (Photo: Carucha L. Meuse/The Journal News.)
September 27, 2009.
New
Islanders. By Lawrence C. Levy, Long Island Pulse.
The plight of these victimized visitors is a small part of the bigger
immigrant story. A study by the Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI), based in Albany,
showed that low wage day laborers comprise a fractional part of the growing
Latino community, which itself is only the foam on a wave of increasingly
affluent newcomers. A broad spectrum of immigrants—including those from India,
Korea, China, Haiti, Africa, Iran and many other lands—are transforming
America’s oldest major suburb. And it’s not accurate to say they are making
merely a positive impact throughout Nassau and Suffolk. They have become the key
to our region’s social and economic survival.
September 16, 2009.
Recession
damage? It's bad. Real bad. New report tracks record declines in local wages
(-4.8%), income (-2.7%) and consumer spending (-8.6%) following last fall's
financial system collapse. By Daniel Massey, Crain's New York Business.
September 3, 2009.
Dealing with New York State's Budget Deficit. Dave Galletly hosted FPI's
Frank Mauro and Michael Breslin, Albany County Executive. On VoxPop, WAMC's
daily call-in talk program.
James Parrott, chief economist for the Fiscal Policy Institute in
Latham, said the $26 billion that the state will receive this year and in 2010
is reducing the severity of the recession, even if it's hard to measure the
employment impact.
For example, health care employment has increased in the state, Parrott
said. He attributed that to the infusion of federal stimulus aid to help cover
the cost of Medicaid. And he said retail and service jobs have been saved by
an increase in consumer spending attributable to stimulus money for food
stamps and extended unemployment benefits.
In New York, stimulus money closed 31 percent of the state's budget gap
and headed off a proposed $1.1 billion cut in public school funding and other
cuts in health, education and aid to the poor, noted Frank Mauro of the
liberal Fiscal Policy Institute.
July 23, 2009.
New York City Mayor Is a Force for Philanthropy in Tough Times. New program
designed to spur volunteerism and efforts to help charities weather the
recession could be a model for other cities, nonprofit observers say. By
Caroline Preston, Chronicle of Philanthropy.
The city has lost more than 100,000 jobs in the current recession, but so
far that's been far less than most forecasts, thanks in part to the federal
bailout of the financial sector. "It's had a profound effect in moderating job
losses in banking and on Wall Street," said economist James Parrott of the
Fiscal Policy Institute.
July 2, 2009.
June's
jobless jump jolts stocks. Employers slashed more workers last month than
many expected. How rough is it? In NYC, nearly one in four black males are
unemployed or underemployed. By Daniel Massey, crainsnewyork.com.
June 23, 2009.
New York State's Business Climate and Fiscal Health. Alan Chartock hosted
FPI's Frank Mauro and Kenneth Adams of the Business Council of New York State.
On VoxPop, WAMC's
daily call-in talk program.
Using only local sales to calculate corporate income taxes "will
significantly erode the city's business income tax base, with no apparent
benefit," says James Parrott, deputy director of the Fiscal Policy Institute.
He adds that the measure comes with no mandates for job creation, despite
officials' lofty projections.
May 27, 2009.
Experts say boro will grow. Diverse Queens economy helped boro survive
recession: Panelists. By Jeremy Walsh, Queens Village Times. Print
versions of this story also appeared in the Astoria Times, the
Fresh Meadows Times, the Little Neck Ledger, the Whitestone Ledger,
the Flushing Times, the Ridgewood Ledger, the Forest Hills
Ledger, the Richmond Hill Times, and the Bayside Times.
Interestingly, in New York State from 1975 to 2008, the
top personal income tax rate dropped steadily from a high of 15.375 percent in
1975 to 10 percent by 1981, 7.875 percent by 1989 and 6.85 percent by 1997,
according to a recent report by the Fiscal Policy Institute. The top rate
stayed at 6.85 percent from 1997 through 2008 with the exception of a
temporary top rate of 7.70 percent from 2003 through 2005. The Fiscal Policy
Institute points out that, were the highest state rate still in effect, the
state would have about $20 billion more in tax revenues per year.
May 19, 2009.
Civic
groups back Port Authority in WTC battle. In an open letter, they argue the
agency should halt financing at just one World Trade Center building. By Theresa
Agovino, crainsnewyork.com.
Lisa and Anthony Kimball of the Village of Montgomery bought their home
three years ago at the peak of the market. Their budget is now being
squeezed by increasing property taxes. Here's how the three most-discussed
property reform bills in the state Senate would impact their taxes.
2008
Income: $85,000
Town tax: $1,827.59
Village tax: $2,426.60
School tax: $5,396.30
Total: $9,650.49
OPTION 1
Bill numbers: S.253/A.7094
What it does: Establishes a
circuit breaker credit that covers all property taxes based on property
value. Establishes brackets where those making under $100,000 get the
largest credit, which gradually decreases so taxpayers making more than
$250,000 receive no credit.
Total relief:
2009: $0.00
2010 and beyond: $3,185.34
OPTION 2
Bill number: S.4239
What it does: Similar to
S.253/A.7094. Establishes a circuit breaker credit for all property taxes
based on property value. The bill phases in over four years to give the
state time to shift funding. Taxpayers would see less savings in the first
three years. Those making under $100,000 get the largest credit, which
gradually decreases so taxpayers making more than $250,000 receive no
credit.
Total relief:
2009: $1,400.34
2010: $1,697.84
2011: $2,292.84
2012 and beyond: $3,185.34
OPTION 3
Bill number: S.1849-C
What it does: Re-establishes the
STAR rebate checks program beginning in fall 2009 and establishes a circuit
breaker credit that covers school property taxes beginning with the 2010
calendar year tax year.
Total relief:
2009: $421.22
2010: $628.63
2011: $698.83
2012 and beyond: $769.04
Source: Calculations provided for the Times Herald-Record by Frank Mauro,
executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute
"There are 25 specific industries we track that had more jobs in the
first quarter this year than the first quarter last year," says James Parrott,
chief economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute.
April 22, 23, 25, and 26.
City Talk:
a program of CUNY-TV hosted by Doug Muzzio of Baruch College's School of Public
Affairs. Guests: E.J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute and FPI's James
Parrott. Cable channel 75 in New York City. Dates: Wednesday 4/22 (4:30 pm and
9:30 pm), Thursday 4/23 (3:30 am), Saturday 4/25 (3:30 pm), Sunday 4/26 (11:30
am).
April 21, 2009.
WAMC's Vox Pop
featured "New York State Fiscal Policy," with guests Frank Mauro of FPI
and Bob Ward of the Rockefeller Institute.
Page with link to podcast.
April 18, 2009. It's bad, but not that
bad. Viewpoints from "two noted local economists," FPI's James Parrott and
Ronnie Lowenstein of the Independent Budget Office. Crains New York Business.
April 17, 2009. SUNY:
Losing Millions in Funding. Despite cuts in state funds, college moving
ahead with $120 million plan to expand and upgrade its science facilities. By
Ken Little, Oswego County Business Magazine.
David Kallick of the Fiscal Policy Institute in New York says when 5
percent of the workforce lacks legal status, the economy takes another kind of
hit.
"It means they can start an entry level job, but they can't really make
the step to improve their education, get to the next level," he says. "And so
you're essentially holding a whole contingent of people back from contributing
even more to the economy than they do."
Frank Mauro, of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a supporter of the tax
increase, took issue with the IBO's findings. He said by his calculations, "at
least" 18 percent of the new tax revenue would come from out-of-staters,
nearly triple the figure estimated by the IBO.
April 1, 2009.
New York State Budget Analysis: Alan Chartock hosts FPI's Frank Mauro and
E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for New York State Policy. WAMC.
March 25, 2009.
Tax Us, Please. At least some wealthy New Yorkers have the right idea. An
editorial from the Syracuse Post Standard.
Some 80 well-to-do New Yorkers stepped up this week and sent an open
letter to Gov. David Paterson and state legislators, asking Albany to raise
their taxes. Instead of cutting essential services to fill a state budget gap
currently pegged at $14.3 billion, they propose "an increase in income taxes
on those who can afford it - which means us."
One of the signers, retired Albany-area entrepreneur Chet Opalka, said
at a news conference in Albany Monday that he's been pretty lucky in life and
doesn't want the state to "cut in all the wrong places." Instead, he said, "in
these times, it's important for the haves to take care of the have-nots."
This public-spirited gesture comes as legislative leaders huddle in
search of a budget agreement by the mandated deadline of April 1. A
"millionaire's tax" reportedly is an on-again, off-again proposition.
The liberal Fiscal Policy Institute notes that state tax rates on the
highest earners have been halved over the past 30 years - those earning
$30,000 now pay the same rate as those earning $30 million. The tax burden has
shifted to middle-class taxpayers, and to even more regressive local property
taxes and sales taxes.
Though some warn raising taxes on the rich would drive them away,
a recent
story in The New York Times and a
report from the Fiscal Policy Institute suggest otherwise. Douglass S.
Massey, an expert on public finance and migration at Princeton, told the Times
there is no convincing evidence such a tax boost affects mobility decisions.
The last time New York enacted a temporary tax surcharge on the wealthy,
between 2003 and 2005, the number of high-income-earners in the state grew
from 250,000 to more than 325,000, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute.
Right now, New Yorkers earning $15,000 pay 12.6% of their income to the state
and to municipalities. Those making $1.6 million or more pay half that. James
Parrott and Frank Mauro of the Fiscal Policy Institute write in the Gotham
Gazette that from 2004 to 2008 public spending grew less than 2.9%, barely the
rate of inflation. But the tax cutting spree between 1994 and 2000 "reduced the
state's tax revenues by about $10 billion a year." The Fair Share Tax Reform Act
will add three new top level brackets, at $250,000, $500,000, and $1 million. It
should go some way to correct the imbalance.
"There is increasing support for this in the Legislature," said Frank Mauro,
executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute in Latham. "There's a set of
reasons coming together, that people are articulating, and that people
understand. That's why there's increasing public support for a progressive
income tax."
And Gillibrand might be surprised to find that immigrants are by no means
only low-wage workers. Immigrants make up a significant portion of nurses,
doctors, accountants, and professors, for example, as well as construction,
restaurant, and child-care workers. A study by David D. Kallick of the Fiscal
Policy Institute showed that immigrants are responsible for nearly a quarter of
New York state's gross domestic product - they contribute 22 percent to GDP,
while making up 21 percent of the population in 2005. Gillibrand should bear
that in mind; a recession is no time to throw a wet rag over nearly a quarter of
the state economy.
Mauro argues that companies pitting cities and states against one
another to nab jobs is a less-than-desirable approach.
"Subsidy competition is unfortunate, and governments should at least
write agreements tightly enough to make sure they get what they are paying
for," he said.
January 26, 2009.
Debunking
the claim that civil servants are overcompensated in New York, and
explaining that increasing wages and benefits for average workers is critical to
solving the economic crisis (at about 25:57). Building Bridges, WBAI.
Over the last 30 years, the trend has been to pare back income tax rates
on the rich, federally and in the state. Since the mid-1970s, the state has cut
its top tax rate from 15.375 percent to 6.85 percent. The top income tax rate in
New Jersey is 8.97 percent, and in Connecticut it is 5 percent, according to
data from the Fiscal Policy Institute, a liberal research group.
January 15, 2009.
Report: State shortchanging SUNY, CUNY. New York is not funding its public
university systems to keep up with rising enrollment, according to the Fiscal
Policy Institute. By Daniel Massey,
crainsnewyork.com.
January 8, 2009.
The Brian Lehrer Show:
Retail Economics. FPI's James Parrott, with
Lynn Thomasson, stock market reporter for Bloomberg News, and Leslie Price of
Racked.com, discuss the city's retail sector: sales, jobs, layoffs. WNYC.
(18:06)
January 8, 2009.
New report says more jobs at risk in city. In a report released Thursday,
the Independent Budget Office gave a grim forecast, estimating that 243,000 jobs
will be lost in the current recession. By Daniel Massey,
Crain's New York Business.
More than 100 economists from around the state have signed a letter to
Governor Paterson, urging him to raise high-end income taxes to close the budget
gap, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute. And they say that steep cuts in
spending as proposed by Paterson will weaken the already struggling economy. It
is a view that Princeton University professor Larry Bartels discusses in his
book, "Unequal Democracy; the Political Economy of the New Gilded Age."
The Fiscal Policy Institute, a progressive public-policy group, has
compiled the evidence ... Since 1976, New York State has cut its top
income-tax rate from the previous 15.375 percent down to 6.85 percent. That
means, notes the Institute, that whether your family makes $41,000 a year or
$1 million, your tax rate is the same. "The large multi-year tax cuts enacted
between 1994 and 2005 are now reducing state revenue by over $17 billion per
year," says the Institute.
November 30, 2008.
City residents feel economy's pain. Respondents to a recent poll say the
city's economy is in poor condition and 40% fear for their jobs, while 80% say
they have already cut back on spending this year. By Matthew Sollars, Crain's
New York Business.
It's sink or swim time for New York state. So let's get our priorities
straight and face the difficult financial situation with a balanced approach
that looks at both the spending and revenue side of the budget equation.
Reckless cuts alone will only pull us deeper into the recession's undertow.
November 17, 2008.
Health care can't absorb more cuts. By James J. Barba, president and CEO,
Albany Medical Center; Steven P. Boyle, president and CEO, St. Peter's Health
Care Services; James W. Connolly, president and CEO, Ellis Hospital; Gino J.
Pazzaglini, President and CEO, Seton Health and James K. Reed, M.D. president
and CEO, Northeast Health. Albany Times Union.
November 17, 2008.
The
Cost of Cuts. An editorial from the Cornell Daily Sun, Ithaca.
"He's doing this entirely from an accounting ledger perspective - he's
not taking the economic impact of his cuts into consideration," said Frank
Mauro, a liberal economist who is executive director of the Fiscal Policy
Institute. Mauro said that Paterson should restrict his actions to the $1.5
billion deficit and use $1.039 billion from the tax stabilization reserve
fund.
Paterson appears to have bought the notion that higher personal-income
taxes cause the rich to flee. This may be the teachings of The
Fountainhead, but there's no real-world evidence for it. Were it so, New
York's wealthy would long ago have escaped to places like Georgia, where
politicians make sure that millionaires pay the same tax rate as day laborers.
As Frank Mauro, the tireless pro-union advocate of the Fiscal Policy Institute
in Albany, points out, the rich have not even fled their estates next door in
New Jersey, which has long taken an extra bite - almost 9 percent - out of the
incomes of those making over $500,000.
What does cause people to move or stay away, says Mauro, is a decline in
public services. "Our fear is that if you try and close a budget gap of the
magnitude that the governor is projecting, you will be inevitably cutting
services that are important to low- and middle-income families," he says. "We
know that expenditure cuts put more drag on the economy than high-end taxes."
October 28, 2008.
NYC city council supports new tax on carry. A majority of the city council
supports a proposal by the Working Families Party, a grassroots political group,
to include carried interest under the city's 4% unincorporated business tax. By
Christopher Witkowski, Private Equity Real Estate.
October 27, 2008. How Congress spells relief. By Erik Engquist and Mike
Sollars, Crain's New York Business.
Congressional leaders are discussing a stimulus package that could send
$50 billion in relief to state and local governments. "New York could get 10%
of that, depending on how it's done," says James Parrott of the Fiscal Policy
Institute. "If it's done through Medicaid, New York would get more."
"The financial crisis puts a dramatic failure of unregulated markets
directly in front of the public," says David Dyssegaard Kallick, senior fellow
at the Fiscal Policy Institute, based in New York. "There could hardly be a
more powerful argument for regulation than the failure of banks that are 'too
big to fail.'"
September 23, 2008.
The Backstory of the Financial Collapse. Call it Gall Street. How else to
describe an industry that applauds nearly $500 million in bonuses for executives
taking an entire economy down with them? By Tom Robbins, Village Voice.
September 17, 2008. The Brian Lehrer Show: What Should Washington
Do? FPI's James Parrott and Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute
discuss how the government should respond to the latest fiscal crisis. WNYC.
(25:31)
September 15, 2008.
New York economy will feel Wall Street's pain. Estimates that 33,000 jobs in
the New York City securities industry will be lost during the current downturn
could be revised upward. By Daniel Massey, crainsnewyork.com.
September 5, 2008.
Businesses hold back on fuel savings. New York City companies that added
surcharges and hiked prices because of gasoline increases are not in a hurry to
roll them back now that the price of fuel has dropped. By Matthew Sollars,
crainsnewyork.com.
It is more than time for our leaders in government and private industry
to start dealing with the issues affecting our nation's workers. If they are
successful in dealing with this issues, their actions will help put this state
and nation back on a solid economic foundation.
If the sea of about 84,000 spectators at INVESCO Field at Mile High
seemed like a lot to you last night, imagine how many arenas we could fill
with a much less cheery crowd here in New York. About half a million workers
across the state were stuck on the unemployment rolls as of July, according to
a new report by the Fiscal Policy Institute.
...
The trends signal a troubling change, but not a hopeless one, FPI says.
The report urges Albany lawmakers to respond by reforming the state's
unemployment insurance system (which currently doles out about $300 per week
on average), to help families ride out the economic slump while softening the
impact of eroding wages.
... in a week filled with remembrances about a long-ago speech
and promises to come, [Martin Luther King, Jr.] would want to remind the
celebrants of Denver and St. Paul and all our communities that his life's work
concerned not only racial equality, but also economic fairness and opportunity
for all. There is so much more to overcome. The campaign trail should help
inform how we - all of us - do just that.
If New York legislators are interested in heading off a snowballing
problem, they should modernize the state employment insurance system.
A report released today by the Fiscal Policy Institute shows that 25
counties in New York State, including Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester, are
experiencing at least 20 percent increases in the number of unemployed
persons.
Nationally, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in 2006 collected just over a
fifth of all personal income in the United States, 21.1 percent. In ten
states, including New York, the top 1 percent claimed an income share over
that 21.1 percent level.
These ten states also share something else in common. All ten, the
Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy charged last
week, have tax systems that "generally ignore" the considerable deep-pocket
presence within their borders.
...
"Restoring some of the New York tax system's lost progressivity," Frank
Mauro of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a state research group, noted last week,
"should be part of the state's effort to balance its budget."
New York Governor David Paterson apparently disagrees. Paterson has no
"millionaire's tax" in his package of proposals to cut the state's $6.4
billion budget deficit. The governor seems to buy the line, wildly popular on
Wall Street, that upping tax rates on the rich will lead to a massive
statewide exodus of New York's wealthy.
That's what a former New York governor, George Pataki, claimed back in
2003 when lawmakers voted to place a temporary 7.7 percent tax on income over
$500,000 and a 7.5 percent tax on any income that couples report over
$150,000. Pataki vetoed this tax hike on New York's most affluent, but
lawmakers then enacted the measure over his veto. What happened? Over the next
three years, with the tax hike on the wealthy that Pataki vetoed on the books,
the number of taxpayers in New York making over $200,000 actually increased by
31 percent.
The occasion was the unveiling of the Omnibus Bill that would combine
short-term tax relief and long-term tax reform. It proposes enacting a
"circuit breaker" and, in the long run, shifting costs to the state.
The Omnibus Bill is the brainchild of Frank Mauro, director of the
Fiscal Policy Institute, an Albany-based economic think tank.
"We came up with this vision that sort of embraces the best of a number
of bills out there," he said.
In closing New York's projected $26 billion budget deficit, we agree
with Governor David Paterson when he says that raising taxes should be the
last resort. New Yorkers already pay a lot of taxes. But a proposal for a
surcharge on the wealthiest New Yorkers is certainly in order considering the
state's economic woes ...
In a state and city with the country's
widest income disparities between the rich and the poor, protecting the
underdog is all the more necessary.
The landscape is already polarizing as the business-oriented Citizens
Budget Commission calls for controlling government spending on social services
while the labor-friendly Fiscal Policy Institute urges ramping up taxes for
higher income brackets.
July 30, 2008. A special
roundtable discussion on New York's economic health convened by WAMC-Albany
in the wake of Governor Paterson's proposed budget cuts. Hosted by Alan Chartock.
"Increasing taxes on higher-income people is less harmful than cutting
government spending," Renwick said. "It should be a balanced approach that
doesn't put increased stress on people who can least afford to pay."
July 30, 2008.
Home health aide union steps up campaign. 1199 SEIU intends to strike if
contracts are not ratified with 25 area home care agencies by mid September,
rally planned for Aug. 7. By Daniel Massey, crains.com.
July 29, 2008. Governor Paterson's speech on the state's financial
situation: outlook and commentary. On the Economy hosted by Bloomberg's Tom
Keene.
Frank Mauro, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a
nonpartisan group near Albany, said history offers some choices that can work.
One is the temporary surcharge on higher incomes that was used by New
York in 2003, Mauro said. For three years, incomes over $150,000 and $500,000
paid extra in different degrees, helping the state through a crisis then.
The federal government should help states, Mauro said, because it can
run a temporary deficit with less harm than if the states try it. This would
prevent states from cutting spending and thus adding to recessionary pressure
even as federal stimulus payments go out to try to combat recession. The
federal government has helped with temporarily higher Medicaid matches and
revenue sharing.
June 16, 2008.
Arguments Against a Property Tax Cap. A segment on Capital Tonight with
Brian Taffe of Capital News 9, joined by David Little, the
Director of Governmental Affairs for the New York School Boards Association, and
FPI executive director Frank Mauro.
May 28, 2008.
For the
record. Unionization translates to higher wages for low-wage workers,
according to a joint report released May 15 by New York's Fiscal Policy
Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.
The Chief-Leader.
May 15, 2008.
Report: Low-wage union workers get 16% more. A new study shows that
unionized workers in the lowest wage brackets in New York state earn 16% more
than non-union workers with similar education. By Daniel Massey, Crain's.
Wouldn't it be nice if there were a mechanism to keep your property
taxes in line with your income? Proposed bill would cap property taxes based
on homeowner's annual income. About 340,000 upstaters could benefit.
April 29, 2008.
PILOT would just subsidize resort. An op ed by John K. Mullen, a professor
of economics and finance at Clarkson University, in the Adirondack Daily
Enterprise.
Social inequality and injustice form another sin. A glance around the
city and the state makes the point quickly enough.
Underlining that reality is a new study by an Albany-based research
group, the Fiscal Policy Institute. It shows that the gap between rich and
poor in New York State keeps widening. A chasm is more like it. In the late
1980s, the study said, families in the top 20 percent of earners made about
seven times as much as those in the bottom 20 percent. By the middle of this
decade, they were making about nine times as much.
April 16, 2008. Pols call for hedge
fund taxation. Bloomberg, New York Metro.
New York - Six New York City Council members endorsed a proposal to
extend the city's tax on unincorporated businesses to include private equity
and hedge fund managers, saying it would raise as much as $225 million.
The lawmakers joined with janitors representing the Service Employees
International Union, members of the Working Families Party and the laborfunded
Fiscal Policy Institute to call for the taxation of performance fees managers
take.
April 10, 2008.
An Agent of Change in an Age of Chaos. A podcast by Sam Roberts, New York
Times. In a tribute to Barry Gottehrer,
Sam alludes to FPI's recent report,
Pulling Apart, to show
that problems facing the city - unmasked more than forty years ago by
Gottehrer's award-winning reporting for the Herald Tribune - still persist today
despite greater public order.
February 22, 2008.
Bush budget stiffs New York: report. President George Bush's 2009 budget
could cost New York State $1.7 billion in federal support, according to the
Fiscal Policy Institute. By Tommy Fernandez,
Crain's New York Business.
The Fiscal Policy Institute has an easy remedy for Gov. Eliot L.
Spitzer's decision to trim aid increases he promised schools as part of a
four-year plan. The institute calculates that the slowdown would cost Buffalo
$5.6 million. That's a lot of teachers, books and other necessities in a
district with lots of poor students - in both senses of the word.
The answer: temporarily increasing the top income tax rates on the
state's highest earners, as the Legislature did in 2003 when it passed a
three-year surcharge over the veto of then-Gov. George E. Pataki.
Granted, it's a radical notion, expecting those with the most to help
those with the least.
But Frank Mauro, institute executive director, recalled Pataki singing
the same "sky will fall" song the well-off always sing when we talk about
helping poor kids. The threat was that raising taxes on those who benefit most
would slow the economy and make people flee the state.
"Neither of those things happened," Mauro said at last weekend's New
York State Association of Black & Puerto Rican Legislators conference in
Albany.
...
Beyond dealing with the current problem, Mauro said, a permanent
surcharge on the highest earners also would reduce property tax pressures on
low-and middle-income homeowners. That would be a permanent benefit.
The non-partisan Fiscal Policy Institute endorsed the circuit breaker
concept as a mechanism for temporary tax relief. But in doing so, it also
called on the state to stop shifting the tax burden to local governments and
to enact systematic changes in fiscal policy to correct what created the high
taxes.
January 31, 2008.
多团体发起移民教育运动.The
Epoch Times (Australia).
January 31, 2008.
Tax reform long overdue. A letter to the editor by
Robin Vaccai Yess, Middletown Times Herald-Record.
Funding schools through property taxes is inequitable, unfair and
unrelated to a person's ability to pay. Until it changes to an income-based
tax to fund schools, our seniors and young families will continue to be forced
out.
It's a two-part problem - the funding mechanism and school district
spending. If district budgets continue to rise by more than twice the rate of
inflation, the tax must continually increase. So, yes, we need a different,
equitable method to fund schools, but school spending must simultaneously be
brought under control.
The commission should seek help from the Fiscal Policy Institute, the
Public Policy Institute and the numerous tax reform groups throughout the
state for tax reform solutions that have already been developed. Many members
of the Assembly and Senate, who are paid with taxpayer dollars, have drafted
proposed legislation.
January 17, 2008.
We Want Higher Taxes. [Thanks Jay for the snappy headline. What we really
want is to take a fresh look at rolling back all the tax cuts enjoyed by those
with the highest incomes - in order to ease the pressure of property taxes as
well as income taxes on those of more modest means.] By Jay Jochnowitz, Capitol
Confidential.
Immigration is much more a blessing than a problem in New York. New
immigrants have made a marked contribution to virtually every community in
Queens. In Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Flushing, immigrant-owned businesses
have flourished, creating jobs and raising property values. These businesses pay
taxes that enable the city to build schools and pay for health care for the
poor.
December 5, 2007.
25% of NYC construction jobs are 'off the books.' The fiscal costs to
taxpayers were $489 million in 2005 and are likely to reach $557 million in
2008, according to a report. By Tom Frederickson, Crain's New York Business.
FPI's study concluded that immigrants contributed $229 billion to the
New York state economy in 2006; that's about 22.4 percent of the state's GDP.
According to David Dyssegaard Kallick, an author of the report, "These
figures should wipe away any impression that immigrants are holding the New
York economy back; in fact, immigrants are a central component of New York's
economic growth."
November 27, 2007.
City of immigrants. An editorial from the New York Daily News.
New York's burgeoning immigrant population is helping to build just what
this city needs to prosper: a thriving middle class. So says a new study that
examined in detail the economic impact that the foreign-born are having on the
Big Apple.
Any way the Fiscal Policy Institute researchers sliced the data, they
found the city's 3 million immigrants - legal and illegal - are pulling their
load. The researchers also uncovered how the immigrants have become deeply
woven into the fabric of life.
...
The numbers add up to the fact that the 3 million New Yorkers born
overseas have had surprisingly positive impacts on a city whose neighborhoods
would wither without them. They are opening large numbers of small businesses,
and more than half have become U.S. citizens. They can vote and they will
surely remember politicians who play on nativist fears.
October 1, 2007. Feeling budget pinch: Spitzer says Wall Street
uncertainty and the lack of a budgetary surplus mean frugal times, with fewer
programs and less spending. By James Madore, Newsday.
September 11, 2007.
Economy here beats the state. By Diana Ladden,
The Independent (covering Columbia and southern Rensselaer counties).
September 10, 2007. Gap between rich and poor in America ever-widening:
Though many still see this as the land of opportunity, the promise of the good
life is fading. By Leigh Donaldson, Maine Today.
September 9, 2007. There is some hope on the local job front. By David
Robinson, Buffalo News.
September 3, 2007. A day to celebrate America's laborers. An editorial
from the Troy Record.
September 3, 2007. Jobless rate up slightly for Broome and Tioga: Local
figure still lower than state, U.S. averages. By Doug Schneider, Binghamton
Press & Sun Bulletin.
September 3, 2007. Upstate economic picture brightens: Wages, job
creation figures show 2006 was stronger, report says. By Jay Gallagher,
Elmira Star-Gazette.
September 2, 2007.
Labor of Love. By Dwayne Kroohs, Kingston Daily Freeman.
September 1, 2007.
State Of NY Labor. By Jay Jochnowitz, Capitol Confidential.
The Fiscal Policy Institute today released
State of Working New York 2007, its annual report on how workers are
faring in the Empire State.
The findings were mixed, with wages, median income, and job growth all
up last year, but pay not keeping pace with increases in productivity, wages
still not back up to their 2002 levels, top earners benefiting more than
those further down the scale and more families falling into the category of
working poor.
The report also found employers relying more on independent
contractors, the result being that fewer working people are receiving health
and other benefits they would traditionally have gotten as employees.
The report recommends raising the minimum wage to $8.25 in 2007
dollars, a level it says would be a "fair permanent standard," requiring
that Industrial Development Agency incentives be keyed to creating good
jobs, more focus in economic development on jobs for New York's
well-educated workforce, cutting property taxes and relying more on income
tax to pay for government.
It also urges the state to move quickly on ways to trim health care
costs and look at universal coverage, rein in the use of independent
contractors, and increase unemployment benefits and basic welfare grants.
September 1, 2007. Reports differ on state's economy: Fiscal Policy
Institute says New York's productivity is best in U.S.; Business Council says
state lagging. By Chris Churchill, Albany Times-Union.
September 1, 2007. Wages in New York up by 1.7%: First rise in 4 years;
report upbeat on jobs. By Jay Gallagher, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.
September 1, 2007.
Regional economy is healthy. By Michael Hill (AP), Middletown Times
Herald-Record. Also in the Troy Record: Jobs increased, salaries
inched up in state.
September 1, 2007. Jobs, wages rise; problems remain: Upstate job growth
of 0.9% best in a decade. By Jay Gallagher, Binghamton Press &
Sun-Bulletin.
July 24, 2007.
U.S.
hikes minimum wages. The U.S. government raised the minimum wage by 70
cents to $5.85 today, the first increase in 10 years. The federally
mandated wage hike is the first of three that will push the minimum wage to
$7.25 by 2009. Reported by Jeanne Yurman of Reuters.
September 4, 2005.
Stagnant wages mar
Labor Day. Commentary on the State of Working New York 2005 by business
reporter and columnist David Robinson in the Buffalo News. (PDF)
September 4, 2005.
In Manhattan, Poor Make Two Cents for
Each Dollar to the Rich. Sam Roberts of the New York Times reports on
new analysis conducted by Professor Andrew Beveridge of Queens College, and
compares it to findings of the Fiscal Policy Institute and others. (HTML)
September 4, 2005.
Little in the Middle. An op ed by FPI Senior Fellow David Dyssegaard Kallick,
New York Times.
October 29, 2000. Evaluation of Tax Cut Proposals of U.S.
Senate Candidates Rick Lazio and Hillary Clinton. FPI Executive Director
Frank Mauro and Governor Pataki's Chief Economist, Stephen Kagann, reach
different conclusions in op eds published together in the New York Daily
News. To read what Mauro and Kagann think about the Clinton and Lazio
proposals, click here.