Construction and the coronavirus recession provoke key questions (photo: Demetrius Freeman/Mayor's Office)

As the coronavirus crisis continues to hit New York harder than any other state in the nation, Governor Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Heastie have undoubtedly answered the call and stepped up in a big way to protect New Yorkers and address statewide needs.

But as they consider ongoing negotiations over the state budget – amid a partial shutdown of New York’s massive construction industry – state

Construction workers, and many others, can benefit from prevailing wage expansion (photo: governor's office)

Massive unemployment following a period of slow recovery left 19 percent of Americans out of work. That was in 1938, when New York officially wrote the prevailing wage into the State Constitution, requiring projects that receive taxpayer funds to pay fair wages to their workers. Still deep into the Great Depression, New Yorkers understood that blue collar workers were the foundation of the economy and key to sustained economic growth.

Fast

Gov. Cuomo (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)

Governor Andrew Cuomo celebrated the achievements of 2019 on Friday, calling the legislative session an “overwhelming success” at a wrap-up news conference in the Capitol. During the January to June session, Cuomo and the state Legislature, with its two Democratic majorities for the first time in a decade, moved legislation dealing with a long list of issues, from combating climate change to expanding voting and reproductive rights, new gun regulations to a cap on annual property tax

(photo: Demetrius Freeman/Mayoral Photography Office)

As the next state budget is being debated in Albany, increasing attention is being paid to the state’s prevailing wage laws. With so much misinformation out there, let’s set the record straight. Paying construction workers a middle class wage is a net positive for New York’s economy.

Specifically, the issue is how construction workers are paid for projects that receive public funds. Since 1897, projects receiving taxpayer funds are required by New York State law to

(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

One of the greatest and most immediate challenges facing New York is a statewide affordable housing crisis that continues to affect millions of families. Elected officials must support and promote new legislation and policies that will help our state produce more affordable homes and, correspondingly, do no harm to much-needed housing efforts.

The reality today is that more than 3 million households across the state still pay more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs, which means they are

(photo: governor's office)

If there’s one thing that New Yorkers can agree on, it’s that we should always strive to create new jobs, not take them away. Amazon’s recent decision to withdraw its planned “HQ2” from Long Island City is an example of us failing on this front. However, public officials still have an opportunity to redeem themselves by protecting local workers from a proposed prevailing wage expansion.

Discussions are currently underway in Albany to extend prevailing wage requirements to private construction projects and could cost New