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Report: New York population could shrink by millions in coming years

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From The Center Square

New York’s population could decline by more than 2 million people over the next 25 years as fewer people are born in the state and more people move out, according to a new report.

The study by Cornell University’s Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy’s Program on Applied Demographics projects that New York faces a significant population decline due to low fertility rates and aging that has not been offset by new arrivals.

“The projections confirm what we have been seeing for some time, which is that if the demographic trends in the state do not change, its population will continue to decline,” Jan Vink, lead analyst for the study, said in a statement. “Conservative estimates suggest a population decrease of 1 million by 2050, but we think an even greater decline is more likely.”

Researchers found that the number of New Yorkers ages 0-17 is projected to drop between 10% and 25% over the next 25 years amid a decline in the number of births. Meanwhile, the state’s population is projected to decline from the current 19.7 million to about 17 million by 2050, mostly through outmigration, the researchers said.

The study, which was partially funded by the state of New York, comes as Albany leaders have become increasingly concerned about outmigration from the state and its potential impact on the economy. Bills seeking to improve the state’s business sector and boost its competitiveness are expected to be filed in the upcoming legislative session.

“Policymakers want to know to what extent the crystal ball of demography can project the future of New York state’s population so they can plan for the future,” Cornell Population Center Director Matt Hall said.

Experts say New York’s outmigration has less to do with politics than it does with a lack of housing, prevailing wages and access to employment.

However, federal data shows that the population decline has major implications for the states, as well as revenue and tax collections. New York lost more than $14.1 billion in state-adjusted gross income between 2021 and 2022 as residents fled to New Jersey, Florida and other low-tax states, according to the latest Internal Revenue Service data.

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has blamed a lack of housing as the primary reason New Yorkers are fleeing the state, making the case for expanding housing stock and making existing homes more affordable.

But Republicans have long argued that New York’s outmigration is being driven largely by the state’s highest-in-the-nation tax burden, a business sector struggling under excessive regulations and rising labor costs.

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Is Government Inflation Reporting Accurate?

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The Audit David Clinton's avatar David Clinton

Who ya gonna believe: official CPI figures or your lyin’ eyes?

Great news! We’ve brought inflation back under control and stuff is now only costing you 2.4 percent more than it did last year!

That’s more or less the message we’ve been hearing from governments over the past couple of years. And in fact, the official Statistics Canada consumer price index (CPI) numbers do show us that the “all-items” index in 2024 was only 2.4 percent higher than in 2023. Fantastic.

So why doesn’t it feel fantastic?

Well statistics are funny that way. When you’ve got lots of numbers, there are all kinds of ways to dress ‘em up before presenting them as an index (or chart). And there really is no one combination of adjustments and corrections that’s definitively “right”. So I’m sure Statistics Canada isn’t trying to misrepresent things.

But I’m also curious to test whether the CPI is truly representative of Canadians’ real financial experiences. My first attempt to create my own alternative “consumer price index”, involved Statistics Canada’s “Detailed household final consumption expenditure”. That table contains actual dollar figures for nation-wide spending on a wide range of consumer items. To represent the costs Canadian’s face when shopping for basics, I selected these nine categories:

  • Food and non-alcoholic beverages
  • Clothing and footwear
  • Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels
  • Major household appliances
  • Pharmaceutical products and other medical products (except cannabis)
  • Transport
  • Communications
  • University education
  • Property insurance

I then took the fourth quarter (Q4) numbers for each of those categories for all the years between 2013 and 2024 and divided them by the total population of the country for each year. That gave me an accurate picture of per capita spending on core cost-of-living items.

Overall, living and breathing through Q4 2013 would have cost the average Canadian $4,356.38 (or $17,425.52 for a full year). Spending for those same categories in Q4 2024, however, cost us $6,266.48 – a 43.85 percent increase.

By contrast, the official CPI over those years rose only 31.03 percent. That’s quite the difference. Here’s how the year-over-year changes in CPI inflation vs actual spending inflation compare:

As you can see, with the exception of 2020 (when COVID left us with nothing to buy), the official inflation number was consistently and significantly lower than actual spending. And, in the case of 2021, it was more than double.

Since 2023, the items with the largest price growth were university education (57.46 percent), major household appliances (52.67 percent), and housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels (50.79).

Having said all that, you could justifiably argue that the true cost of living hasn’t really gone up that much, but that at least part of the increase in spending is due to a growing taste for luxury items and high volume consumption. I can’t put a precise number on that influence, but I suspect it’s not trivial.

Since data on spending doesn’t seem to be the best measure of inflation, perhaps I could build my own basket of costs and compare those numbers to the official CPI. To do that, I collected average monthly costs for gasolinehome rentals, a selection of 14 core grocery items, and taxes paid by the average Canadian homeowner.¹ I calculated the tax burden (federal, provincial, property, and consumption) using the average of the estimates of two AI models.

How did the inflation represented by my custom basket compare with the official CPI? Well between 2017 and 2024, the Statistics Canada’s CPI grew by 23.39 percent. Over that same time, the monthly cost of my basket grew from $4,514.74 to $5,665.18; a difference of 25.48 percent. That’s not nearly as dramatic a difference as we saw when we measured spending, but it’s not negligible either.

The very fact that the government makes all this data freely available to us is evidence that they’re not out to hide the truth. But it can’t hurt to keep an active and independent eye on them, too.

1 After all, taxes are certainly a major part of our cost of living, right? And even though you could argue that tax payments deliver benefits like “free” healthcare, well transportation expenses also deliver benefits (like the ability to get to work).

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2025 Federal Election

Carney’s Hidden Climate Finance Agenda

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From Energy Now

By Tammy Nemeth and Ron Wallace

It is high time that Canadians discuss and understand Mark Carney’s avowed plan to re-align capital with global Net Zero goals.

Mark Carney’s economic vision for Canada, one that spans energy, housing and defence, rests on an unspoken, largely undisclosed, linchpin: Climate Finance – one that promises a Net Zero future for Canada but which masks a radical economic overhaul.

Regrettably, Carney’s potential approach to a Net Zero future remains largely unexamined in this election. As the former chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), Carney has proposed new policiesofficesagencies,  and bureaus required to achieve these goals.. Pieced together from his presentations, discussions, testimonies and book, Carney’s approach to climate finance appears to have four pillars: mandatory climate disclosures, mandatory transition plans, centralized data sharing via the United Nations’ Net Zero Data Public Utility (NZDPU) and compliance with voluntary carbon markets (VCMs). There are serious issues for Canada’s economy if these principles were to form the core values for policies under a potential Liberal government.

About the first pillar Carney has been unequivocal: “Achieving net zero requires a whole economy transition.”  This would require a restructuring energy and financial systems to shift away from fossil fuels to renewable energy with Carney insisting repeatedly in his book that “every financial [and business] decision takes climate change into account.” Climate finance, unlike broader sustainable finance with its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) focus would channel capital into sectors aligned with a 2050 Net Zero trajectory. Carney states: “Companies, and those who invest in them…who are part of the solution, will be rewarded. Those lagging behind…will be punished.”  In other words, capital would flow to compliant firms but be withheld from so-called “high emitters”.

How will investors, banks and insurers distinguish solution from problem? Mandatory climate disclosures, aligned with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), would compel firms to report emissions and outline their Net Zero strategies. Canada’s Sustainability Standards Board has adopted these methodologies, despite concerns they would disadvantage Canadian businesses. Here, Carney repeatedly emphasizes disclosures as the cornerstone to track emissions data required to shift capital away from “high emitters”. Without this, he claims, large institutional investors lack the data on supply chains to make informed decisions to shift capital to businesses that are Net Zero compliant.

The second pillar, Mandatory Transition Plans would require companies to map a 2050 Net Zero trajectory for emission reduction targets. Failure to meet those targets would invite pressure from investors, banks, or activists, who may pursue litigation for non-compliance. The UK’s Transition Plan Task Force, now part of ISSB, provides this standardized framework. Carney, while at GFANZ, advocated using transition plans for a “managed phase-out” of high-emitting assets like coal, oil and gas, not just through divestment but by financing emissions reductions. “As part of their transition planning, [GFANZ] members should establish and apply financing policies to phase out and align carbon-intensive sectors and activities, such as thermal coal, oil and gas and deforestation, not only through asset divestment but also through transition finance that reduces real world emissions. To assist with these efforts GFANZ will continue to develop and implement a framework for the Managed Phase-out of high-emitting assets.” Clearly, the purpose of this is to ensure companies either decarbonize or face capital withdrawal.

The third pillar is the United Nations’ Net Zero Data Public Utility (NZDPU), a centralized platform for emissions and transition data. Carney insists these data be freely accessible, enabling investors, banks and insurers to judge companies’ progress to Net Zero. As Carney noted in 2021: “Private finance is judging…banks, pension funds and asset managers have to show where they are in the transition to Net Zero.” Hence, compliant firms would receive investment; laggards would face divestment.

Finally, voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) allow companies to offset emissions by purchasing credits from projects like reforestation. Carney, who launched the Taskforce on Scaling VCMs in 2020, has insisted on monitoring, verification and lifecycle tracking.  At a 2024 Beijing conference, he suggested major jurisdictions could establish VCMs by COP 30 (planned for 2025 in Brazil) to create a global market. If Canada mandates VCMs, businesses especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) would face much higher compliance costs with credits available only to those that demonstrate progress with transition plans.

These potential mandatory disclosures and transition plans would burden Canadian businesses with material costs and legal risks that constitute an economic gamble which few may recognize but all should weigh. Do Canadians truly want a government that has an undisclosed climate finance agenda that would be subservient to an opaque globalized Net Zero agenda?


Tammy Nemeth is a U.K.-based strategic energy analyst. Ron Wallace is an executive fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the Canada West Foundation.

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