by enrolling<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cHalf of all households in New York are available for extra help with their energy bills,\u201d Hochul said.<\/p>\n
Eligible New Yorkers include people who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, Medicaid or a veterans disability pension, according to the governor.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s real money. Real money!\u201d Hochul said.<\/p>\n
Blakeman said the state\u2019s proposed relief is insufficient.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is she giving us? Peanuts! We get back peanuts we give her thousands of dollars and this is what we get,\u201d Blakeman said.<\/p>\n
Hochul responded by pointing to former President Donald Trump while discussing energy costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen was his last conversation with Donald Trump given that the costs are driven by the assault on our clean energy strategy,” Hochul said.<\/p>\n
Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, invoked a promise President Trump made to voters last week, in which he said the government will “issue a dividend” of $5,000 if Republicans hold onto control of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Blakeman contrasted that idea with the state\u2019s rebates.<\/p>\n
\u201cWouldn\u2019t you rather have $5,000 in your account than $100?\u201d Blakeman said.<\/p>\n
Hochul has said upwards of eight million New Yorkers will soon get rebate checks. According to figures highlighted in a graphic, joint filers under $150,000 can get $200 back, and joint filers making up to $300,000 can get $150.<\/p>\n
For some New Yorkers, the pressure is already immediate \u2014 especially for people on fixed incomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is going up. Grocery too. And at the end of the month very little for spending extra,\u201d said Migdalia Miranda, of the Lower East Side.<\/p>\n
Voters also described broader affordability concerns tied to utility bills and gas prices.<\/p>\n
“Everything is out of control. You need two incomes just to own a home,” said Howard Beach resident Catherine O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC New York. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC New York journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With just weeks to go until the midterm elections, the New York governor\u2019s race is zeroing in on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[38490,426,237,9,11,10,87],"class_list":["post-347960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-decision-2026","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-money","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}