Colby Hamilton, Writer, WNYC News
Colby Hamilton is a general assignment reporter. He originally joined WNYC as a political blogger. He's a proud graduate of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
NYC getting back less than it pays in state bucks: Rockefeller Institute
Tuesday, December 20, 2011 - 11:57 AM
A new report from the Rockefeller Institute at the University of Albany concludes what has been an open secret: downstate communities, including New York City, get back less in state spending than they put in in taxes.
The entire report is below, but here are the important numbers during the 2009-2010 budge cycle:
- New York City pays 45 percent of the state's tax other revenue burden. We receive back only 40 percent of the state's expenditures.
- Downstate suburbs pay 23.6 percent of the tax burden, but only receive 18 percent of the state's funding.
- By comparison, out of the remaining 48 counties--not including the Capital Region--in the state paid 24 percent of the state's taxes, yet received 35 percent of the state's dollars.
- And in the Capital Region--Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schenectady counties--those communities paid 4 percent of the state's tax share, but received nearly double that much back at 7 percent.
While this will hopefully give comfort and fodder to those pushing back on the idea that New York City is gobbling up disproportionate amounts of the state's resources, it's also worth looking at this in the context of redistricting.
I posted a lengthy piece digging in to downstate redistricting maps proposed by Common Cause. Their maps would work, among other things, to balance out the concentration of State Senate seats so New York City was better represented in that chamber. As the Rockefeller Institute shows, those political realities--who represents where--make a difference.
More in:
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Comments [3]
It is the same Nationally we pay more and get back less.
Now the rich pay a lot more and they get a lot less back, as for the Common Cause maps they are a joke.
Lets face it anybody who draws a map has an angle and Common Cause is not different they rap it as "good" government, what a joke just look at the Congressional lines in NYC why should Nadler come into Brooklyn, why does Brooklyn need to be represented by someone from Manhattan, what about Mahoney and that Bronx/Queens District.
Gerrymandering by government is still Gerrymandering
Before there was the "Oracle at Delphi" there was Count Vampire J. Machiavelli
VJ Machiavelli
Power to the People who "VOTE"
http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/pdf/2004_expenditure_nys2.pdf
Later study which references the 1999 study, with data back to 1992. The 1999 study does not seem to be on line.
It is perhaps no surprise that poorer areas of the state pay less in taxes, and get more in benefits. That is necessarily so.
What was a surpise is that, as the Center for Govermental Research in Rochester found at the time, NYC was a substantial net contributor to the rest of the state in the early 1990s when NYC had lost 300,000 jobs, had 1 million people on welfare, had a horrific fiscal crisis, and was basically bankrupt.
The attitude of the rest of the state toward NYC runs in a three part cycle:
1) When things are down, you don't deserve it, because you created your own problems.
2) When things are up, you don't need it, because the needs are greater elsewhere.
3) When things are down statewide, sorry but we don't got it.
One other point. When certain population groups fled NYC in the 1960s and 1970s, they retained control of the city's public jobs and political machines. Term limits ended that on the City Council, but NYC's state legislators basically represent politically connected people who commute in from the suburbs and retire to Florida.
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