Food prices in the New York City metropolitan area have risen 25.2% since 2019 and low-income households are paying substantially more toward food than before the pandemic. While food costs are affected by many factors, recent increases have been fueled by supply chain disruptions created by disruptive public health, severe weather and geopolitical events, which may continue in the near term.

New York’s child care sector continues to face lingering challenges post-pandemic including child care deserts, low wages for child care workers and high prices that are putting a financial strain on families statewide. Yet even with high prices, many providers operate on thin margins, with financial and regulatory pressures that make expansion or even operating at capacity challenging. Vigorous federal support and additional State efforts are necessary to improve the availability of child care.

Homelessness in New York State has grown sharply, more than doubling between January 2022 and January 2024. A key reason for the increase has been the mass arrival of asylum seekers to New York in this period. While the homelessness increase was driven mostly by New York City, the rest of the State’s regions also experienced increases during this time period.

New York City’s 65 and older population grew by nearly half a million seniors in the last two decades, an increase of 53%. Much of the growth was led by Asian, Hispanic and Black seniors calling the City home, along with more seniors born outside the U.S. The City needs to continue to monitor the trends of the aging population to ensure services remain commensurate with need and outreach is robust.

The benefits from four major social insurance programs provide crucial financial support during difficult times in the lives of hundreds of thousands New York workers and their families each year. This report analyzes benefits provided for representative workers under unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, temporary disability insurance and paid family leave. 

New York State has seen a surge in hate crimes over the last five years with 1,089 reported instances in 2023, marking the highest number since data collection and annual reporting were mandated by New York’s Hates Crimes Act of 2000. As the number of hate crimes has grown, these crimes are increasingly targeting people rather than property, with most attacks against Jewish, Black and Gay Male New Yorkers.

Motor vehicle fatalities in New York State have risen 25.8% since 2019, with fatalities in 2022 at the highest level in a decade, even as the number of vehicle miles travelled, licensed drivers and traffic accidents have declined. State lawmakers recently enacted “Sammy’s Law,” which allows New York City to reduce speed limits in certain “safety zones” that are prone to pedestrian traffic injuries and fatalities. Such discretion could be provided to other local governments looking for ways to make their roads safer.

Nearly one in five New York children live in poverty, and rates are significantly higher in some of New York's largest cities. With the 2021 Child Poverty Reduction Act, New York has set a goal to reduce child poverty by 50% by 2031 and has taken action in recent State budgets. The State and federal government have the solutions to lift more children out of poverty, and policymakers should act with urgency to use them.

Food insecurity is increasing in New York, with one-in-nine households (11.3% or 875,000 families) unable to get enough food at some point during 2020 through 2022 because they lacked money or other resources. Nationally, food insecurity increased for the first time in over a decade to 11.2% during 2020 through 2022. With the end of the pandemic, many of the enhancements to federal safety net programs also ended. Additional federal and state efforts are needed to address food insecurity.

New York State’s Environmental Facilities Corporation has provided financing for over 2,000 essential local water infrastructure projects totaling more than $23.7 billion since 1990, but the estimated capital improvement needs for water and sewer projects far exceeds this amount, and tens of billions of dollars in local projects remain in the pipeline.