Report Creates Road Map for Change in New York State

In an exclusive presentation to BCW Board Members on Wednesday, Heather Mulligan, President and CEO of the Business Council of New York State, discussed the Council’s recent report on New York’s economic challenges. 

Titled Blueprint for New York: Creating a Roadmap for Change, the report highlighted issues like high taxes, regulatory burdens, and population loss, noting that New York has lost 10% of its working-age population since 2005. 

Key recommendations include: reforming energy policies, reducing regulations, and repealing the scaffold law, which has been top priority of the BCW for many years.

Mulligan emphasized the need for certainty and predictability in government processes and advocated for a balanced approach to child care funding to avoid burdening small businesses. 

The report provided some sobering statistics:

300,095 regulations in New York containing 17 million words.

24,195 pieces of legislation were introduced in 2023-2024.

Meanwhile, job growth in the state was 7.23 percent versus 12 percent national average for the same timeframe. 

9.6 percent of prime working age population was lost in New York State since 2005. If the trend continues, NYS will lose an additional 725,000 workers while Texas will gain 4.1 million over the next 20 years.

Only 2 percent of business owners surveyed in the report feel lawmakers represented their interests in Albany.

Of the business owners surveyed, only 3 percent feel lawmakers and state regulators understand and support their business.

Only 8 percent of business owners say government actively supports innovation.

Only 21 percent of businesses say New York State is on the right track

72 percent of businesses do not see current economic conditions as good.

The report surveyed more than 40 associations and over 500 business leaders through more than one dozen focus groups over the last year to get the most in-depth view of what is going on. The BCW hosted the first business roundtable in the state which helped gather information and recommendations for the state. The findings from that meeting were included in the report. The BCW will include many of the report’s recommendations in its 2026 Legislative Agenda

Mulligan said the report touches on the kinds of things that people don’t want to acknowledge about the state but do need to be corrected. “I think of it like if you go to the doctor and the doctor says, you know, you’ve got really high blood pressure. It’s not good news. It’s not what you want to hear. But there are things you can do about it, and that was the point of this report,” she said. The BCW and the BCNYS will continue to work together on many critical issues that have an impact on the business community during next year’s legislative session in Albany.

To read the full report, https://thebcw.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/BCW-Blueprint-2.pdf