Dear New Yorkers,
Did you miss us?! New York City’s conflict-of-interest laws prohibit elected officials from sending out communications during a “blackout period” in advance of an election when they’re on the ballot, so we haven’t been able to e-mail you our monthly Economic Newsletters and Spotlights since March. (We take the rule-of-law very seriously over here).
If you missed them, you can check out the Spotlights from those months on Student Loans and the Cost of Higher Education, Job Quality in New York City, the potential impacts of Trump’s Tariffs, and Tourism’s Role in the NYC Economy.
There’s been a lot of budget news as well. On June 30, the City Council adopted the City’s FY 2026 Budget. At $115.91 billion, it’s an increase of $842 million over the Mayor’s Executive Budget proposal released in May – with increases for childcare ($229M), rental assistance ($100M), and legal services for immigrants ($50M). One thing it does not include, unfortunately, is any deposits into the City’s rainy day fund or reserves, despite repeated calls from my office to add $1B to protect us from looming threats from Washington.
Alas, Trump’s Budget Reconciliation Bill poses grave risks for New York City and State budgets, and essential services that so many New Yorkers rely on. As we detail in our newsletter, the bill will likely kick 2 million children off the Child Tax Credit, take health insurance away from 1.5 million New Yorkers, and cut over $13 billion in funding to New York State for health care.
Trump’s bill adds $4 trillion to the federal deficit and gives huge tax breaks to wealthy individuals and corporations. It increases funding for Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by 500%—making it the largest federal law enforcement agency in history, ramping up Trump’s cruel efforts to detain and deport asylum seekers, often with no legal basis. Last month, as you may have seen, I was detained myself by ICE agents, while asking to see a judicial warrant and questioning their legal authority. I’ve been back every week since, and I’m afraid things have only gotten worse.
On the brighter side, our Spotlight this month finds strong resilience in the NYC economy since the Covid-19 pandemic. The primary constraint on growth – no surprise – is housing. So look out for this month’s Fiscal Note, which collects data on 44 completed, ongoing, and potential office-to-residential conversions totaling 15.2 million SF, which could absorb more than one third of the occupancy lost since the pandemic and produce approximately 17,400 apartments.
We’ll keep watching the numbers. And doing what we can to insist on the rule of law, too.
