Governor Andrew Cuomo has been visiting New Yorkers who left the state at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic to ask them to come back. These are mostly wealthy residents, New York’s “one percent”, who pay 50% of state taxes.
The New York Post said,“Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been begging rich people to return to New York City from their second-home retreats so they can pay taxes to help offset the state’s growing coronavirus-related revenue shortfall.”
These New York residents fled to Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Florida to escape the coronavirus.
In March, New York was the epicenter of the infection, having suffered at least 32,422 deaths from the virus.
Governor Cuomo is offering perks just so New Yorkers would come back.
On Monday, the governor said, “I literally talk to people all day long who are now in their Hamptons house who also lived here, or in their Hudson Valley house, or in their Connecticut weekend house, and I say, ‘You got to come back! We’ll go to dinner! I’ll buy you a drink! Come over, I’ll cook!’”
“Our population, 1 percent of the population, pays 50 percent of the taxes,” Cuomo said.
Cuomo expressed concern that the coronavirus-related relocations will be made permanent. This will drain money away from New York and New York City.
New York is set to face a $30 billion budget shortfall.