New York Needs To Invest In Manufacturing Growth
Randy Wolken, President & CEO

The manufacturing economy continues to recover. Now it’s time to secure vital manufacturing and tech sector growth here in New York State. The COVID-19 pandemic has hurt New York State manufacturers and they continue to be challenged by the current global supply chain crisis and the difficulty in finding qualified talent. As a global industry, manufacturing is particularly affected by high taxes that make its New York State operations less competitive.

New York State runs the real risk of losing thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs, and companies, if it does not extend tax parity to all manufacturers in the state. How do we know this? MACNY members of every kind, especially many small and medium-sized companies, share with us their challenges every day.

In 2014, New York State created a growth environment for large C Corporation manufacturers. MACNY and its members advocated for this critical investment in manufacturing. It spurred expansion and made our state more attractive to new businesses. It allowed us to compete for the next generation of semiconductor chip fabs, green jobs, food production facilities, and other high-tech manufacturing companies. This allowed our state to remain a top 10 manufacturing state within our nation. While these measures continue to make a difference, it only has benefited about 25% of our state’s manufacturers. The rest of our state’s manufactures still pay one of the highest tax rates in the country.

As a result, many of these smaller, family-owned manufacturers struggle to keep operations going. This year’s state budget process serves as a real opportunity to solve this problem and correct the inequity. It’s time to give all manufacturers, and the thousands of hardworking individuals employed at them each day, the same opportunity to grow and invest here in New York State. We will need your help in securing this critical change in the NYS Budget.

There is legislation introduced in the NYS Assembly and Senate that would extend tax parity to New York’s small-to-medium-sized manufacturers and allow all manufacturers to grow and prosper in our communities. Now is the time to put this approach into New York State’s budget. Tax parity would produce thousands of new manufacturing jobs for underserved populations, economic benefits for our local communities, and great-paying careers for more individuals. This is intelligent economic development at its finest.

We have so many opportunities to make our state stronger than ever. First, however, we need to capture growth in ALL manufacturing and technology companies. As we’ve learned from the ongoing COVID pandemic, manufacturers in New York rose to the challenge to help produce critical supplies. They are looking to New York State to support them and invest in their growth.

Join me in telling your elected officials at all levels that policies to support manufacturing job growth, especially tax parity for small and medium manufacturers, are now more critical than ever. Therefore, New York State must include tax parity in the 2022-23 State Budget.

Please contact Tiffany Latino-Gerlock at [email protected] to help with our efforts to include tax parity in the final NYS budget.