An Early Look at COVID’s Educational Disruption in New York State

When COVID hit the nation in early 2020, the nation’s schools shut down. The disruption continued into the 2020-2021 school year, as most schools offered remote or hybrid learning rather than in-person instruction. Some reopened but suspended in-person instruction because of COVID in classrooms. These decisions became contentious, with critics pointing to their likely impact […]

With a New Governor, New York Faces Economic Challenges

For decades, New York has had substantial disparities in economic performance. Although some parts of the State are doing relatively well, much of it has declining employment, higher levels of poverty, lower household income levels, and fewer adults working than the nation. Over most of the past decade, job growth was limited to Eastern New […]

COVID-19 erased New York’s Employment Gains over the Past Decade

From June 2011 to June 2019, New York saw employment increase by 388,440 – 4.4%. But by June 2021, the pandemic had erased all those gains. In June, the state’s employment was lower than in 2011 – by 72,916 jobs or 0.8%. Both before the COVID pandemic and in June 2021, New York’s job performance […]

Empire Center Article Questioning New York’s Nursing Home Staffing Law Misstates Evidence

The Empire Center’s Bill Hammond published an article, “A Study of COVID-19 in Nursing Homes Raises Doubt About New York’s Minimum Staffing Law,” that argues that “A newly published study of COVID-19 in nursing homes links larger numbers of employees to higher rates of infection and death for residents – raising fresh doubts about New […]

Was Cuomo’s COVID Mandate Associated with Nursing Home Deaths? A Correction

I recently wrote about the relationship between Governor Cuomo’s policy requiring nursing homes to accept new residents discharged from hospitals with positive COVID-19 test results. The policy was in place from March to early May 2020. I compared my results with those of a study by Bill Hammond and Ian Kingsbury of the Empire Center, […]

The Empire Center’s Report on Nursing Home Deaths Answers Some Questions, Raises Others

The Empire Center’s February 18th Report, “COVID-positive Admissions Were Correlated with Higher Death Rates in New York Nursing Homes” shows an association between COVID-positive admissions and death rates in nursing homes in New York State, following the State Health Department order on March 25th, 2020 requiring that they accept recovering COVID patients. The Empire Center […]

Cuomo’s Nursing Home Controversy – What does the Data Show?

Questions have been raised since last Summer about New York’s published count of nursing home resident deaths. The State had claimed until this month that nursing home deaths stood at only 7,491, a relatively low rate compared to other states across the nation. This, despite Governor Cuomo’s health department directive issued on March 25th that […]

The Botched COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout: 100 Million Doses in 100 Days Isn’t Enough

The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in New York State and elsewhere has been marred by confusion and limited supplies of vaccines. In New York, the state portal does not provide an easy way for people to identify all the locations that have the vaccine, or to sign-up, other than for sites operated by the […]

New York’s Explosion of COVID Cases and a Flawed Vaccine Roll-Out

When Covid-19 first appeared in New York in March of this year, the state, like other locations, faced a novel disease against which there were few defenses. New York faced a dire situation in March – hospitals in the New York Metropolitan area were overwhelmed.  With cases and hospitalizations skyrocketing, the State imposed a lockdown, […]