New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul on Jan. 14 delivered her 2025 State of the State Address at the Kitty Carlisle Hart Theatre at the Empire State Plaza in Albany. As expected, Hochul called for improvements to Metro-North service in the Hudson Valley including upgrading of stations and reducing commuting times between Manhattan and Poughkeepsie. She also touched on dozens of other proposals including cutting taxes for more than 8.3 million middle class New Yorkers, putting more police on New York City’s subways and cracking down on investment firms that buy up single-family houses and drive up the prices.
She proposed offering free SUNY and CUNY Community College tuition for adult students who are pursuing in-demand careers.
Hochul said, “Our future depends on the ability of every family to afford the essentials of life, and our ability to protect the safety and security of our residents. But we will not achieve these goals without a fight. So my commitment to every New Yorker is this: Your family is my fight. That has been the inspiration and impetus for everything we have done for the last three years.”
Hochul said that she knows New Yorkers are struggling with inflation and sky-high rents and wages that don’t keep up with their needs.
“A state of the state address can be full of flowery rhetoric and still fail to address the needs of the people. I believe it needs to be much more than just lofty words,” Hochul said. “It should be a concrete blueprint that will deliver actual results that the people will feel. That’s what New Yorkers expect and that is what you will see today: a bold, actionable plan for 2025 that addresses affordability and public safety head on.”
She called for a sweeping middle-class income tax cut benefitting 8.3 million taxpayers making less than $323,000. She pointed out that the inflation sales tax refund she has already proposed would give $300 to individuals and $500 to families.
She called for tripling the maximum child care tax benefit to $1,000 for babies and children up to the age of four and in 2026 boosting the credit for school-age children to $500.
She said she wants to partner with the legislature and find a way to provide universal childcare and Hochul proposed spending $110 million to build new child care centers and renovate existing ones.
Hochul also said she wants to see that every child gets free breakfast and free lunch at school so children who are in need will be spared the embarrassment and the stigma of standing out among their classmates.
Hochul said that New York “must be livable and safe. My fight for your family also means that New Yorkers feel secure on the streets, on our subways, and in our communities.”
“We cannot allow our subway to be a rolling homeless shelter. We’ve already invested $1 billion dollars into reforming our mental health system, more support than any time in New York history. As part of this investment, dedicated teams work day and night to help get the severely ill and homeless off our subways and into supportive housing. But we know it’s not enough. Our laws must be even stronger. And that’s why I’m willing to stand up and say we need to expand involuntary commitment into a hospital to include someone who does not possess the mental capacity to care for themselves such as refusing help with the basics: clothing, food, shelter, medical care.”
Hochul called for judges statewide to use their power to stop the cycle of offenders being released over and over without consequences only to commit crimes again.
Hochul announced an initiative to “build new playgrounds and create hundreds of thousands of new opportunities for kids to join music and drama clubs, youth volunteer organizations, and sports teams. These activities are transformative.”
Hochul said that she wants the state to commit an additional $100 million on top of the $650 million already spent on building or preserving housing units. The additional money would be used to build starter homes and provide down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers.
Hochul announced a plan to block private equity companies that often buy numerous houses as investments, reducing inventory, driving up prices and preventing families from being able to afford home ownership.
“New York is going to do something that no other state in the nation has done and ban private equity companies from bidding on properties the first 75 days that they’re on the market,” Hochul said. “That’s how we ensure single- and two-family homes remain available for the families they were built for. And that’s how we make homeownership possible for more New Yorkers. We’ll also ban price fixing software that inflates rents and costs tenants nationally $3.8 billion a year.”
Hochul said that people need look no further than the deadly fires in Los Angeles for a reminder of how fragile our world is and what the future will hold if we sacrifice mother nature on the altar of profit.
“Our hearts go out to everyone in California who has lost homes and lost loved ones,” Hochul said. “I’m grateful for the firefighters who worked 24-hour shifts to defend their communities from walls of fire. And I’m really proud of the New York National Guardsmen who have been deployed to assist in California. I know you’ll join me in saying a silent prayer for their safety and all those afflicted by this horrific tragedy. In the last few years we’ve experienced record heat, droughts, floods, tornadoes, blizzards, hurricanes. My fight for your family also means preventing these catastrophes from becoming our new normal. For we are truly the first generation to experience the effects of climate change and we are the last generation who can do anything about it.”
Hochul called for a new $1 billion investment to support New York’s transition to a zero emission economy, saying that every other state should follow New York’s lead.
