Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday used her second State of the State address to unveil a wide-ranging agenda for 2023, vowing to tie New York’s minimum wage to the rate of inflation, create hundreds of thousands of new housing units and push for further changes to the state’s oft-debated bail laws.
Hochul, a Democrat, began addressing the state Legislature at 1 p.m. from the ornate Assembly chamber in the Capitol in Albany. But she laid out dozens of proposals for the coming year in a 277-page policy book delivered to lawmakers earlier in the day.
Among those proposals is a plan to overhaul the state’s current system for increasing the minimum wage, taking it out of lawmakers’ hands. Instead, the wage — currently $15 in New York City, Westchester County and Long Island — would automatically increase to match year-over-year changes in the price of consumer goods.
Hochul’s public safety plan, meanwhile, calls for a new round of changes to the state’s bail system, which is likely to draw opposition from progressive Democrats in the Legislature who continue to stand behind the 2019 reforms that have drawn extensive criticism from New York City Mayor Eric Adams and others.
She also laid out a $1 billion plan to bolster the state’s mental health system, in part by reopening more than 800 inpatient psychiatric beds and creating more supportive housing units.
Here are five takeaways from Hochul’s State of the State plan, as laid out in the book delivered to lawmakers:
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