New Yorkers could get up to $500 check in first unveiling of Gov. Hochul’s State of State proposals: ‘I know the stress’

Taxpayers in New York could receive $500 refund checks next year, as part of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s first official proposal to combat the cost of living in 2025.

The “Inflation Refund” — the first ever in the state — would send $3 billion back into the pockets of 8.6 million of the state’s taxpayers next year, the governor said unveiling the proposal outlined in her upcoming State of the State address.

Single taxpayers who earn up to 150,000 per year would receive refund checks for $300 next year, while joint filers who make up to $300,000 annually would collect $500, according to the plan. 

“I know the stress parents feel intuitively, in my bones, I feel it,” Hochul said during a press briefing in the Bronx on Monday, “and that’s why I am so committed to helping New York families in any way possible.”

The 66-year-old governor pointed to her own modest upbringing in a “working class family” of eight eating “hamburger helper,” “stale Twinkies and bread” and “fried spam sandwiches” in the outer suburbs of Buffalo.

And, as a result, said she was shocked watching the cost of a gallon of milk, eggs and diapers soar after the pandemic.

“I know that feeling of just not getting ahead,” she added. 

“We’re told inflation is getting better, it’s actually coming down. But let me ask this question: ‘Do any of you feel like you have more money in your pocket these days? No? I didn’t think so.’”

The tax rebates are the first of several initiatives Hochul hopes to put forward next year as part of her “affordability agenda” to curb the high cost of living in the Empire State.

Those initiatives will be outlined in her upcoming State of the State address on Jan. 14, and comes just weeks before the legislative session begins in Albany.

If the Inflation Refund is passed by the state Legislature, payments to taxpayers would begin in the fall.

Meanwhile, affordability is an apparent focus of Hochul’s State of State address, after voters in November pointed to the economy as the No. 1 issue at the ballot box.

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