New York is traveling down a dangerous road. Thanks to President Donald Trump’s billions of dollars in funding cuts, 1 million people across the state risk losing their Medicaid or Essential Plan coverage and 200,000 people risk losing their SNAP benefits. This means thousands of people may go hungry, develop preventable health conditions or even die.
Meanwhile, New York’s millionaires will get a $12 billion federal tax cut this year. But the good news is that we’re not at a dead end — or at least, not yet.
Next year’s state budget isn’t done. Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York legislators have the ability to course-correct, backfill Trump’s disastrous cuts and get our state onto a more sustainable path.
What’s even better news is that it won’t be hard for Hochul to do so. The solution is simple, and it’s staring her right in the face: Tax New York millionaires like me more.
One of the main reasons Hochul has opposed raising taxes on rich New Yorkers is that she believes they will move to lower-tax states if she does so. But study after study has demonstrated that millionaire tax flight is, for the most part, a myth. New York actually gained thousands of new millionaires over the past two years despite tax increases on ultra-rich individuals and highly profitable corporations that state lawmakers enacted in 2021.
The numbers show that the people actually leaving the Empire State in droves are working- and middle-class New Yorkers in search of more affordable child care and housing.
What the governor doesn’t realize is that millionaires like me are so rich that we can afford to live wherever we want. I, for one, choose to live in New York precisely because of the amenities that the state’s relatively high taxes finance — including its world-class schools, parks, libraries, museums, hospitals and subways.
To her credit, the tentative budget agreement Hochul announced Thursday includes a pied-à-terre tax, which would be paid by people who own second homes in New York City worth $5 million or more that are not anyone’s primary residence. But the estimated $500 million in revenue that it would raise annually wouldn’t be enough to close the city’s $5.4 billion budget gap. It also wouldn’t do enough to fill Trump’s billions of dollars in cuts to New Yorkers’ food and health care assistance programs, and it wouldn’t do anything to help people outside of New York City.
In short, Hochul’s pied-à-terre tax is a good start, but to fully course-correct, she has to think bigger.
She can raise income tax rates on high earners in New York City. She can throw her support behind legislation that would create new state income tax brackets for millionaires. She can champion legislation that would raise tax rates on large corporations. The possibilities for tax-the-rich policy solutions are endless.
I am urging Gov. Hochul to not fall for soundbites from a handful of billionaires who would rather make empty threats to move out of the state than pay taxes. They don’t represent me or any of the affluent New Yorkers I’ve encountered over the years. We love living here, but we also want the doormen and actors and teachers and everyone else that we need to make New York continue being New York to be able to live and raise their families here.
There are no obstacles in the governor’s way to saving thousands of New Yorkers from going hungry or getting sick. There are no obstacles in her way to getting all of us on a better, more sustainable path. All she needs to do is find the political will to tax millionaires like me more — before it’s too late.
Morris Pearl lives in New York City and is the chair of Patriotic Millionaires. He was formerly a managing director at BlackRock.