It’s a free-for-all.
The handshake deal between Gov. Kathy Hochul and Albany lawmakers on a behemoth $254 billion state budget is loaded with handouts — from ‘inflation refund’ checks to free school lunch.
Hochul, when announcing the “general agreement” late Monday, boasted that her freebies will save New York families thousands of dollars.
“When you add all this up — your family’s inflation refund, school breakfast and lunch, the child tax credit for your little ones, plus the middle class tax cut — that’s $5,000 back in the pockets of New York families,” she said.
“That’s how you make a tangible difference in people’s lives.”
The $5,000 worth of freebies are part of what Hochul has touted as her “affordability” agenda for everyday New Yorkers as she and fellow Democrats in the Legislature haggled over the record-breaking, bank-busting budget — which nonetheless includes a tax increase on businesses to fund the MTA’s ambitious $68 billion capital plan.
The marquee handout in the preliminary deal is perhaps the up-to-$400 checks being sent out to a little over 8 million eligible New Yorkers later this year.
Hochul secured $2 billion for what are misleadingly dubbed “inflation refund checks,” despite disdain from fiscal hawks who lambasted them as an ineffective use of funds.
Individuals and families will received if they fall under the following fiscal thresholds:
- Families making under $150,000: $400
- Families making between $150,000 and $300,000: $300
- Individuals making under $75,000: $200
- Individual making between $75,000 and $150,000: $150
The one-time checks will be greeted with a sigh of relief from New Yorkers who’ve been hit by ever-increasing prices, Hochul predicted.
“If anybody questions whether or not an inflation rebate is a good idea, go with me to a grocery store and walk and push a shopping cart as a mom is putting everything from eggs to diapers and bread and tuna fish in the cart,” she said.
The checks will also come alongside a measly 0.1% decrease in income taxes for individuals making less than $215,400 and families making less than $323,200 for 2026.
They can expect another 0.1% reduction in 2027.
Families with children, however, can expect an even bigger bit of tax relief.
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The child tax credit will be expanded for two years under the plan, resulting in up to $1,000 tax credits for each kid aged 0 to 3 for most families in 2025 and $500 for each youngster aged 4 to 16 the following year.
The expanded credit is expected to cost around $800 million over the two fiscal years.
“The child tax credit I think is going to be an extraordinary change to help families, particularly those that are struggling, lift them out of poverty,” Hochul said.
Schools will also now have to serve breakfast and lunch to students free of cost, under changes adopted in the spending plan.
Hochul’s budget office estimates this will cost the state an additional $340 million a year.
