Transcript
Automated transcript · uncorrectedWell with us this morning is Heather Mulligan and happy Saint Patrick’s stay.
Heather, thank you you too.
And you are the president and CEO of the New York State Association, advocating for New York business community, and you are very much concerned about what the heck is going on in both US City and both US State and why don’t you tell us about it?
Okay? Well, I don’t know if you saw, but recently the Controller of the State of New York, Tom DiNapoli, and I jointly published an op ed raising concern about out migration of New Yorkers and the impact that it has on the state, the state finances, and the state budget.
We lost more than half a million residents between twenty twenty and twenty twenty three, representing one in one hundred personal income tax filers. Some estimates show that up to ten billion dollars of income moved to New York. And last fall we commissioned the Business Council of New York State, which is the entity that I represent, and along with
the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association SIFMA and Bankers commissioned a study to see what the impact of out migration was on the financial services industry, and I think the really the most alarming statistic is that about nine hundred and thirty three billion dollars in assets moved out of New York to other states in the last three
years and the financial services industry. Obviously a New York City is the financial services capital of the world, but it also is the largest contributor to the state’s GDP and also employs the vast majority of the very high income earned in New York.
In New York, you know what we have all the time people from Florida. Jimmy Patronis is on from who is the number two person in Florida, and he’s a CFO, which is like Tom Denapley’s job. And he said, and he comes on our show and he says, come on down.
Yeah. Oh. I talked to the head of the Florida Chamber, Mark Wilson, all the time, and he just says that he always wants to send a thank you card to our legislature for the policies that they enact that make people want to leave the state. You know, it’s interesting because the discussion right now about out migration, and there was a
report yesterday that showed that about seventy thousand additional people left New York City last year. The argument that is being made is that it’s not high income earners, it’s lower and middle income earners because of affordability. And so the solution that is being discussed by the letlature to make New York City more affordable is to raise taxes,
which first off, makes zero sense.
That is the dumbest thing that let me tell you something. I think we got dumba legislators that ever before.
They’re not all dumb, but unfortunately, the desire to forever punish this industry and to somehow say that people aren’t paying their fair share, it’s sort of been the loudest noise in the room. And you know, it’s just a factual matter that less than two percent of all personal income filers pay close to half of all of the
taxes that are collected in the state. And these are the folks that earn a million dollars or more. And that number, despite what people will say, is not on the increase. New York and Illinois, in fact, are the only two states to have a net loss of million dollar income earners or more. We may have had an
increase in the number of people that on paper are millionaires because their four to oh one ks grew or because of inflation in the real estate market, but the number of people earning over a million dollars in New York and Illinois, as I mentioned, we are the only two states to lose them, and it’s because of our
very hostile business climate and our policies around high income earners, which you know, most states recognize you want to embrace and protect the industries that are supporting your economy, but New York doesn’t seem to be interested in doing that.
I’ve talked to many of those legislatures legislators and I agree. I mean, it’s they don’t think people are moving, but they are moving. And I spoke up to somebody in the Democratic Party, I can’t tell you who. He feels the budget is going to be in trouble and the crap is going to hit the fans soon.
Other than LATERA I agree with that. I mean, even if you look at the people who left the state during the pandemic, some of whom have returned, a much larger percent of them are paying state taxes as non residents, so that means they’re still earning money from New York, but they’re not living here anymore. And if you ask
the CEOs of most of the financial services firms in New York, they’ll say that they’re growing, but they’re not growing in New York. They’re growing in Texas, North Carolina and Florida.
Jp Mlagan has more employees in Texas than they got in New York. Who’s going to fill up that new building?
Well, I mean, I think there’s growth across the industry, but to the extent that there are options for people in the sector to live in New York or in a state that does not have an income tax. I mean, it’s not rocket science that it’s a significant number to a lot of people, and they’re not going to say
where it’s most expensive. They’re going to go where the jobs are and where they can bring home the most money from their paycheck.
Heather President and CEO of Business Council in New York, we got about a minute, minute and a half left. What do you want to tell? What do we do?
I mean, the first thing that we do is we stop punishing the industry and the sectors that are supporting our economy. And the second thing is we need to start thinking about what we’re spending on. New York spends double what Florida does in its state budget, and there’s no there’s really not better results to show for it.
We do not have better outcomes in terms of even public education. We do not have better healthcare outcomes. And there’s a lot a lot of evidence out there and a lot of studies by institutions like Stanford that would suggest that our tax climate is responsible in part for people leaving the state. So we need to fix that,
and that takes action by our legislature, and they need to stop penalizing businesses and people who are earning a lot of income in the state and welcome them because it all supports our state budget and it all supports spending on the programs that people care about.
Well, Heather Mulligan, thank you, and we stand side by side. WHATEVERWABC can do, whatever I can do, you let me know and we’re here for you.
Okay, Well, thank you very much, and again, happy Saint Patrick’s Day. Thank you.
