recent York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a proposal to send checks up to $500 back to taxpayers to address the high expense of living.

Hochul announced her “worth rise refund” concept on Monday as the first preview of her annual State of the State talk. Paying those sums to 8.6 million recent Yorkers is expected to expense the state $3 billion — an outlay that must be included in the state apportionment Hochul initiates in January and finalizes with state lawmakers by around April 1.

She cast the payments as a refund for excess sales responsibility recent Yorkers have paid due to higher customer prices, which has in turn hiked the income the state has collected. recent York should now profitability some of that money “to assist millions of challenging-working recent Yorkers,” Hochul said in her announcement.

“It’s straightforward: the expense of living is still too damn high, and recent Yorkers deserve a shatter,” she said.

Here’s what to recognize about the proposed recent York checks and other states who have acted similarly in recent years.

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Who would qualify for the payments and how much are they?

person taxpayers earning up to $150,000 a year would get $300 checks under Hochul’s proposal. Couples filing a joint responsibility profitability with a total income up to $300,000 would get $500 checks.

When would the checks arrive?

Hochul’s announcement said the state would commence distributing the payments next fall, if lawmakers approve the schedule. No other details were given about a commence date or how long the check mailing would receive.

recent York’s proposed checks arrive years after other states issued them

At least 22 other states have offered responsibility rebate checks since the commence of the pandemic, according to Jared Walczak, an specialist on state policies at the responsibility Foundation, a nonpartisan responsibility policy nonprofit. recent York also passed a homeowner responsibility rebate capitalization in 2023.

But Hochul’s recent proposal is a standout for coming later than other states, Walczak said.

Here are some other states that have passed similar measures:

• California – In 2022, the state apportionment included a “middle-class responsibility refund” of payments up to $1,050 for eligible taxpayers.
• Virginia – Taxpayers in Virginia received responsibility rebates of up to $200 for individuals in November 2023.
• Georgia – The state issued special responsibility rebates in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The payments sent back $250 to single responsibility filers and $375 to head-of-household filers.

Hochul’s proposal comes as the rate of worth rise has cooled significantly since its 2022 peak, but consumers remain frustrated by grocery prices staying up, more than 25% since 2019.

“Most states aren’t looking for patches to the worth rise issue anymore,” Walczak told USA TODAY in an interview. “They’re looking more at long-term economic competitiveness, not rebate checks.”

Local leaders judge proposal for not addressing the larger issue

Walczak said for some states that had leftover income, giving it back to taxpayers could be better than spending it inefficiently.

“But generally speaking, rebate checks do very little to promote financial expansion because they’re sort of after the truth,” he said, explaining that something else like responsibility decreases allows consumers to schedule for upcoming spending.

He also pointed out that this money is taxpayer’s money in the first place, and the Internal income Service determined that the rebate checks in some states were taxable.

“There may have been better, if less politically exciting, ways to use this additional income,” Walczak said.

Huchul is expected to run for a second term in 2026, and polls display she is unpopular with voters. Democrats control both chambers in the state legislature, so they will likely decide the fate of the “worth rise refund” schedule. Republicans and a potential Democratic primary rivals for Hochul quickly scorned the schedule as a political gimmick and a frail answer to a large issue.

Contributing: Bailey Schulz

Kinsey Crowley is a trending information reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected], and pursue her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley.