A new report out from SUNY Albany's Rockefeller Institute of Government finds that upstate New Yorkers get a lot more than they give when it comes to the state taxes.

The report is called "Giving and Getting" and examines state receipts and expenditures from the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

The findings show that the state government is redistributing wealth from New York City, to poorer parts of upstate.

Bob Ward is the deputy director of the Rockefeller Institute, which issued the report. He says the data helps reveal more about the income inequality debate sparked by the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Ward pointed to an upside, "We in New York are extremely fortunate that we have a pretty fair number of those one percent upper income earners. The very rich people who live in New York generate billions and billions of tax revenue every year."

The report found that when the Capital Region was excluded, the majority of counties in upstate New York paid around a quarter of the state’s taxes, but received 35 percent of state dollars in return.  

The bottom line, Ward said, is that downstate gives much more in state taxes than it gets back, and upstate areas get much more than they give, "We in upstate New York really do depend more and more each year on the economic activity generated on Wall Street."

Ward said  upstate New York received 12 billion dollars more in payouts than it gave in taxes during that fiscal year.