At a recent roundtable with New York executives, Heather Briccetti Mulligan remembers the frustration of a busi
nessman who compared trying to file a permit for a $200 million construction project with ordering a pizza.
The pizza could be tracked by phone from the moment it was ordered to its arrival at his door, Mulligan, head of th
e Business Council of New York State, recalls the executive saying. The permit, on the other hand, “went into a black hole.”
“‘There’s no one I can call,'” she remembered him saying. “‘I don’t know when it’s going to be looked at. I have no idea if there’s anything wrong with it. And there’s no timeline.'”
The anecdote was one of many told to the Business Council as part of a survey of more than 500 business leaders
that found a broadly pessimistic outlook on the ability to operate successfully in the Empire State. They cited rising costs, high taxes, increasing regulatory requirements and a shrinking population of workers.
The findings, released Wednesday, come as the business community contends with democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as the front-runner for mayor of New York Cit
y. His agenda, which includes freezing rents and increasing taxes for corporations and the wealthy to pay for free childcare an
d buses, has spurred concern among politicians and businesspeople that firms and jobs will be driven from New York.
At the same time, the state faces an uncertain economic climate on the back of President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, funding cuts and curbs on immigration.
The survey found businesses are already struggling. Just 3% of business leaders say New York regulator
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s and lawmakers understand or support their industries, and only 2% said they believed Albany lawmakers represent the
ir interests. And more than 70% of those surveyed said they don’t see the current economic conditions in the state as good.
The Business Council, along with the New York State Economic Development Council, convened over 20 meetings ove
e working with city and state governments and the challenges they face in running their businesses. The names of
the businesses and the people surveyed, who represented nine regions across the state, were kept confidential to allow people to speak freely.
Labor Pool
While respondents said they generally were pleased with the quality of the available workforce in the state, they mentioned a worrying long-term trend: New York’s population of working-age people fell o
ver the past decade by 3.8%, US Census data shows. New York ranks 46th among the 50 states in growth of its working age population over the decade, while, states like Utah, Idaho, Texas and Florida saw their pool of potential workers grow by double digit percentages over the same time period.
The competition for talent also comes down to the difficulty in luring workers to the state, as well as retaining them, the participants said. It’s not just the high taxes — participants cited high costs of living and energy as factors driving workers out of state.