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Empire Center
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The Empire Center for Public Policy, Inc. is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank based in Albany, New York.Our mission: Make New York a better place to live and work by promoting public policy reforms grounded in free-market principles, personal responsibility, and the ideals of effective and accountable government.Here you can listen to podcast versions of our public events we host on pertinent topics surrounding New York State politics.
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NY’s COVID-19 Nursing Home Toll: Did State Policy Make it Worse?
Jul 13, 2020Tap to summarizeEmpire Center’s E.J. McMahon talks with Bill Hammond about New York’s nursing home polices throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Background reading: State Department of Health report, “Factors Associated with Nursing Home Infections and Fatalities in New York State During the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis,” issued July 6 Cuomo Admin Ducks Important Questions on Nursing Homes, blog post by Bill Hammond, July 8 Nursing Home Vacancy Rate Soars, Hinting at a Higher Coronavirus Toll, blog post by Bill Hammond, June 30 #NYCoronavirus Chronicles, a regularly updated compendium of Empire Center research and analysis on the pandemic and its New York impact, dating back to Feb. 28. The post NY’s COVID-19 Nursing Home Toll: Did State Policy Make it Worse? appeared first on Empire Center for Public Policy.
Transcribe →How could the MTA keep more token booths open?
Jun 11, 2010Tap to summarizeE.J. and I had a podcast chat this morning to run through some of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s 2009 payroll data, released last week by the Empire Center’s seethroughny.net . The data show that last year, the MTA’s 74,708 workers earned nearly $5.92 billion in cash pay (not including health-care costs or money set aside for future pensions). Payroll was up by nearly $75 million, even as the number of workers fell by nearly one percent. The average worker took home more than $69,000, up 2.4 percent from 2008, even as personal income fell in the New York City job market by 3.3 percent. More than 10 percent of workers took home six figures, including many commuter-rail engineers and others who more than doubled their base salary, often because of overtime related to work rules. As E.J. and I note in the discussion, the data help cut through some of the noise surrounding the two MTA topics du jour: token-booth cuts and student MetroCards. The first issue: For the past week or so, MTA honcho Jay Walder has warned that a court order forcing him to hold public hearings before cutting 400 token-booth clerks is costing his agency $40,000 per day. But higher wage costs between 2008 and 2009 cost more than $205,000 daily. If Walder could have held the average booth-clerk wage to the 2008 level of $54,000, instead of watching it rise to $55,884, those savings alone cost have saved 30 booth jobs at the 2008 rate. The second issue: Today’s papers report that 2,400 high-school students will walk out of school this afternoon to protest Walder’s plans to start charging students half-fare MetroCards this fall (currently, the kids ride free). The measure is supposed to generate $46.5 million (and double that when Walder phases out free fares altogether). The $46.5 million in initial savings from ending the free fares are only $127,000 a day. To recap, then: keeping wage costs at 2008 levels would have solved two of the MTA’s biggest problems — token booth closures and phasing in student fares — with nearly $38,000 a day left over. Listen to the whole thing! The post How could the MTA keep more token booths open? appeared first on Empire Center for Public Policy.
Transcribe →The Acme Health Insurance Corp.
Jul 29, 2009Tap to summarizeClassic cartoon characters have an entertaining knack for suspending the basic laws of physics–for example, when Wile E. Coyote propels himself in pursuit of the Road Runner through the use of a sail “pushed” by a fan strapped to his back. So perhaps that was coyote logic at work in yesterday’s news release from the advocacy group Single Payer New York, hyping a state-sponsored Urban Institute study of options for expanding health insurance coverage in the state. The advocates said the study showed that a government-funded health insurance program in New York would “save” $20 billion–a claim dutifully highlighted in various news accounts. (c) Warner Bros. Free health insurance for all New Yorkers–and at a lower cost, too? There’s only one way to describe this. In fact, on closer inspection, the Urban Institute analysis suggests a single-payer plan would require the state government to assume responsibility for an additional $57 billion in health insurance now financed by employers and individual New Yorkers. Total annual spending on health care under the new, 100 percent government-funded program would be a whopping $86.3 billion—$2.5 billion more than the current system (see chart on page 16 of this summary). And, keep in mind, this estimate reflects optimistic assumptions about the ability of a state-run plan to save money through “lower payment rates to providers and lower administrative costs,” no doubt assisted by Giant Rubber Bands from the Acme Corp. The study also says a single-payer plan would entail $402 million in “an unmet demand for services” — i.e., medical treatments denied through rationing, although the Urban Institute avoids using the “r” word. A closer reading of the study reveals the universal single-payer plan would “save” money only when compared (at just the right acute angle, of course) to other “universal” coverage options, including individual health insurance mandates. Oh, well. It was probably too much to hope that single-payer advocates would reach the obvious conclusion. Instead, after calling on Governor Paterson to propose a universal health care plan for New York, they’re off to Washington, DC, to lobby for a national version of the same thing–which would undoubtedly “save” even more. The post The Acme Health Insurance Corp. appeared first on Empire Center for Public Policy.
Transcribe →What’s next for Wall Street
Oct 20, 2008Tap to summarizeWith the city comptroller’s office now projecting a loss of 35,000 jobs in New York-based investment banking and other financial services occupations, what’s the next thing that will drive profits and employment in a Wall Street recovery? In a recent Bloomberg Radio “On the Economy” podcast, private investor David Goldman gave this answer: There isn’t any next thing. This is the end of a cycle. Wall Street employed some of the brightest people in the world to find clever ways to sneak leverage in under the door, or through the transom, in order to make thin returns look like fat returns. There simply isn’t any demand for that now, so you’re going to have legions of people who were very gainfully employed doing this finding fulfillment in organic farming and other pursuits. The post What’s next for Wall Street appeared first on Empire Center for Public Policy.
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