Reports

Identity theft cases surged in New York State in 2020, inflicting financial losses on individuals and threatening disruption to government programs as well as private financial institutions. Identity theft complaints surpassed 67,000 statewide last year, more than four times the annual total from a decade earlier, according to Federal Trade Commission data.

This report examines the use of overtime by New York State agencies over the past ten calendar years. The total cost of overtime in calendar year 2020 reached an all-time high at more than $850 million, covering roughly 19.1 million overtime hours worked.

The Corporate Governance Program supports and facilitates the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in the Common Retirement Fund’s due diligence process, investment decisions, and performance monitoring program, and provides active stewardship of the Fund’s public equity holdings.

The New York State All Funds Budget for State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2021-22 totals an estimated $212 billion — the largest budget in State history, almost 10 percent greater than the prior year. While the Budget relies on an influx of resources to make significant investments in Education, Medicaid, and for aid for New Yorkers and businesses, it also missed opportunities to correct course on some lingering fiscal deficiencies.

As unprecedented fires burned in the West and powerful storms flattened or flooded homes, businesses and vital infrastructure in every corner of the nation, 2020 painted a vivid picture of the potential for climate change to disrupt our lives. 

The Climate Action Plan Progress Report for the New York State Common Retirement Fund highlights the Fund’s recent efforts to address climate risks and opportunities.

To date, New York businesses and not-for-profits have received $51.0 billion of federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, low-interest loans first authorized in March 2020 in response to economic hardships faced by these entities due to the pandemic. This report provides a profile of PPP loans by county, industry, and business size.

New York has recovered less than half the jobs lost between February and April 2020. This report explores the industries leading the recovery, including the leisure and hospitality sector, retail, and construction, and shows which industries continue to lose jobs.

One year since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, 4 out of 5 small businesses continue to report an overall negative impact in their business. This report explores the latest U.S. Census Bureau survey data from New York’s small businesses, the allocation of fiscal relief for New York from the American Rescue Plan of 2021, and the latest figures from the Comptroller’s monthly cash report.

A year after the first case of COVID-19 was reported in New York State, the economic disruption caused by the pandemic remains severe. One key measure is the total number of New Yorkers claiming unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. The figure remains elevated 11 months after the initial surge of job losses, with 2.4 million claims reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as of mid-February 2021.

The Executive Budget Financial Plan for State Fiscal Year 2021-22 projects that federal operating aid spending in the current fiscal year will total $76.6 billion, an increase of 30 percent over last year. The proposed Budget assumes the State will receive at least $3 billion in unrestricted federal assistance for each of the next two fiscal years. However, that level of funding would not be enough to avert painful spending cuts to local governments, nonprofits and other service providers, or tax increases.

Each year, thousands of New Yorkers take the opportunity, while paying their State taxes, to support a variety of charitable purposes through the State’s personal income tax check-off programs.

New York ranks seventh among all the states in the percentage of adults who are experiencing food scarcity, at 14 percent compared to the 11 percent national rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest Household Pulse Survey.

Unemployment rates for New York State, New York City and the balance of the State spiked upward in April 2020. At that point, and in the months immediately before, the percentages of officially unemployed workers in the City and in the rest of the State were nearly identical — but those numbers have since diverged sharply.

As DEC now enters its second half-century, its mission is broader than ever before. Wide-ranging laws to address climate change and major initiatives to assure clean drinking water are just some of the new tasks DEC has been assigned in the last few years, adding to an already long list of environmental planning, regulatory and management programs — all of which are important to our quality of life and the State’s economy.

The economic outlook contained in the Governor’s Executive Budget proposal for State Fiscal Year 2021-22, released this week, anticipates continuing but slow improvement for employment and other economic indicators, as well as tax revenues.

New Yorkers’ average student loan balance rose by 3.9 percent from the previous year to $37,600 as of June 2020, according to newly available data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The Office of the State Comptroller received 21,282 contract transactions, including both new contracts and contract amendments, valued at $102.4 billion in the calendar year 2019. The average time from agency contract submission to final sign-off was 6.3 days.

In the second quarter of 2020, total wages paid in New York State declined by $12.5 billion or 7.4 percent in comparison to the second quarter of 2019, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

After losing more than 1.9 million jobs in March and April, New York State saw steady gains, averaging over 174,000 jobs in each of the following five months.