Analysis of New York State Legislators’ Personal Financial Interests

02.27.2014 / 1:23 AM / By Susan Lerner

For Immediate Release:

Contact:

September 3, 2013

Susan Lerner, Common Cause/NY, (212) 691-6421

Bill Mahoney, NYPIRG: (518) 817-3738

Analysis of New York State Legislators’ Personal Financial Interests

The attached analysis is based on information legislators filed with the Legislative Ethics Commission and Joint Commission on Public Ethics earlier this year. Under provisions of 2011’s ethics reform law, legislators were, for the first time, required to disclose detailed information relating to the actual value of outside income and investments.

The information used to generate this report’s statistics was compiled by Common Cause/ NY, the New York Public Interest Research Group, and The New York World. A fully searchable database hosted by The New York World can be found at http://thenewyorkworld.com/public/2013/09/nyw-legislator-disclosure/index.php.

Key findings include:

– Lawmakers’ household income in 2012 averaged between $178,140 and $237,941; the median legislator’s household income was between $137,000 and $172,000. Each of these amounts is substantially higher than the median New York State income of $56,951. (p. 3)

– Lawmakers from the Mid-Hudson and Western New York had the largest average household incomes. (p. 3)

– The household income of Senate Republicans – an average of up to $289,332 – was larger than that of members of other conferences. (p. 4)

– The household incomes of Assemblymembers Paulin ($2.2 to $2.6 million) and Corwin ($1.8 to $2.1 million) were the highest in 2012. (p. 5)

– The median legislator reported having between $133,000 and $285,000 in savings and assets less debt and liabilities; the average legislator reported having between $732,492.23 and $1,306,159.30. In the aggregate, legislators reported total assets of between $154,555,859.85 and $275,599,611.31. (p. 8)

– On average, legislators from Western New York have the largest amount of reportable assets. This number, however, is skewed by the massive net worth of one of their delegation. The region from which legislators reported the largest median net worth is the Capital Region. (p. 9)

– On average, Republicans serving in the Legislature and their spouses have almost exactly twice as much (2.01 times) in reported assets as Democrats. (p. 10)

Report: Analysis of New York State Legislators’ Personal Financial Interests