City Politics

Gov. Hochul’s State of the State Address: Agenda for 2025

Albany, N.Y.: New York State Governor Kathy Hochul delivers her State of the State speech at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center in Albany, New York on January 14, 2025. (Photo by J. Conrad Williams Jr./Newsday RM via Getty Images)

By Mary Alice Miller
Governor Hochul’s State of the State address focused on affordability and safety, two themes designed to persuade New Yorkers to raise their families in the state instead of moving elsewhere under financial pressure.


In the forward to her 129-page 2025 State of the State book, Hochul stated, “As we reflect on the state of our great state, two things are clear to me: our future depends upon the ability of every family to afford the essentials of life, and our future depends upon our ability to protect the safety and security of our residents.”


The governor outlined a few of her proposals in her address.
She called for a sweeping middle-class income tax cut benefitting 8.3 million taxpayers making less than 323,000 dollars, the lowest tax rates in seven decades. Her national first inflation refund would refund three hundred dollars for individuals and five hundred dollars for families bringing in less than 300,000 dollars annually.


Hochul called for tripling the maximum benefit to 1000 dollars for babies and kids up to the age of four, a boost of the credit for school-age children to 500 dollars in 2026, put New York on a pathway to universal childcare.

Hochul wants the state to invest 110 million dollars to build new childcare centers, renovate existing ones, expand options for families and communities all over New York, and establish a corps of substitute childcare professionals so someone’s always on call.

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In addition, Hochul wants every child to get free breakfast and lunch at school so that children who are in need will be spared the embarrassment and the stigma of standing out among their classmates.


“We cannot allow our subway to be a rolling homeless shelter,” said Hochul. She called for dedicated teams to help get the severely ill and homeless off our subways and into supportive housing.

She called for expanding involuntary commitment into a hospital to include someone who does not possess the mental capacity to care for themselves such as refusing help with the basics: clothing, food, shelter, medical care, and strengthening Kendra’s Law so those with serious mental health challenges get into long term treatment.


She wants to see uniformed police on the platforms and on every single train overnight – 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. – over the next six months, more barriers in stations to prevent commuters from falling or being pushed onto train tracks, modernized gates to deter fair beaters, and triage centers at the end of all the major routes where people can get off and get assistance 24/7.


Hochul’s “Unplug and Play” initiative would build new playgrounds and create hundreds of thousands of new opportunities for kids to join music and drama clubs, youth volunteer organizations, and sports teams as an alternative to hours of cell phone social media use.

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In order to make housing more affordable, Hochul proposes 100 million dollars to build starter homes and provide down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers and ban private equity companies from bidding on properties the first 75 days that they’re on the market.


She wants to make community college completely free for students ages 25-55 who enter high-demand fields like advanced manufacturing, education and healthcare.
She is calling for an historic $1 billion investment to further the transition to a zero emission economy via offshore wind and hydroelectricity.


Hochul said her overall policies look to driving down crime, lowering taxes, investing in childcare and education, jobs, new homes, clean energy, small businesses and building a strong economy that will endure for generations.


On the opening day of the 2025 legislative session, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie called for providing more tax relief to our middle-class families and eliminating state income taxes for low-income families.


He would help small businesses struggling under the staggering unemployment liability and penalties held over from the pandemic and replenish more than $6 billion owed to the federal Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund.

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Heastie seeks more equitable school funding, an increase funding for afterschool programs for children and families in high need school districts, and expansion of the free lunch program to all students across the state.


He called for federal funding of New York’s transit system.
Heastie wants the state to the needs of people struggling with mental health, substance use disorders and homelessness , and an increase in resources and standards for successful Raise the Age programs across the state.


“Time and time again we have fought to get the most vulnerable New Yorkers the services they need to thrive, and we will continue to work towards a brighter future for all,” said Heastie. “To stay on that path, we must do more than simply identify problems. We must find solutions. And I have faith that we can do that together.”


Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins addressed her conference at the opening of the legislative session by calling for expansion of universal pre-kindergarten, taking it one step further by moving towards Universal child care and continuing to fully fund public schools.


“No New Yorker should put off medical care due to worry about the cost,” said Stewart-Cousins. “Furthermore, as New Yorkers grapple with their utility bills, we will double down on efforts to lower the cost of energy and protect rate payers from price gouging, All this while continuing to tackle exorbitant costs at the register for food and clothing.”

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Stewart-Cousins said the state will “continue to stand up for our farmers because they are a critical piece of our fight for affordable food because we know if there is no farm there is no food.”


She called on addressing New York’s housing crisis by protecting tenants and making bold investments in affordable working class, middle income housing, including helping first time home buyers, and support our existing programs that will keep people in their homes amid financial setbacks and advance policies that keep the cost of living down for our seniors and our veterans and other on fixed incomes.


“As the birthplace of the American labor movement we know that unions are one of the shortest paths to the middle class,” said Stewart-Cousins. “We’ll continue to advance robust labor protections and benefits to expand our workforce from the from the ground up. We’ll remain a safe haven with the right to organize and collectively bargain is not only recognized but encouraged.”


Stewart-Cousins said “Tackling the affordability crisis and getting New Yorkers back on track must be our top priority.”

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