New York Legislative Agenda 2023
Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Proposals
1. Hospital Funding
Hospitals desperately need increased funding in order to protect our healthcare workers, keep hospitals open, and ensure the best quality of care for all New Yorkers. We must protect workers and prioritize patient care by improving job conditions for frontline healthcare workers and focusing on worker recruitment and retention.
What We’re Fighting For
➔ $1.3 Billion for financially distressed and safety net hospitals
➔ 10% Medicaid rate increase
2. Eliminating Fees for SUNY Graduate Student Workers- Senator Stavisky (S3500)
Graduate Student Workers are the backbone of the State University of New York System but are compensated with poverty wages. Despite the vital role they play in teaching and research, they are required to pay their employer fees in order to work, resulting in significant financial hardship for this workforce and threatening the viability and competitiveness of the program.
➔ What we’re fighting for: Waive fees for SUNY grad student workers.
3. Raise Up New York Minimum Wage Bill - Senator Ramos (S1978)/ Assemblymember Joyner (A2204)
Despite increasing productivity, workers’ wages have not kept up.
➔ What we’re fighting for: Raise the minimum wage for almost 2.9 million workers to $20 and index annual statewide increases to inflation and labor productivity.
4. Supporting Local Journalism - Senator Hoylman (S625A) / Assemblymember Woerner (A2958A)
New York State residents are at risk of being deprived of access to news about their communities as disruption to the business model of news publication threatens to accelerate journalism job losses. There are news desserts in New York State - since 2004, nearly half of our weekly newspapers have closed and the number of daily papers has declined from 62 to 54.
➔ What we’re fighting for: Payroll tax credits that will enable publishers and station owners to rebuild their newsrooms. We know that vibrant local news is essential in making local government more responsible to the taxpayer and growing our local economies.
2023 Legislative Proposals
1. New York Public Banking Act - Senator Sanders (S1754)/ Assembly Member Hunter (A3352)
Public Banks are created by governments, owned by and accountable to the people, with the goal of serving the public - not Wall Street.
➔ What we’re fighting for: Establish a regulatory framework for public banking