Introduction: Less than three months after signing Pennsylvania’s long overdue 2025-26 budget into law, on Feb. 3, Gov. Josh Shapiro delivered his 2026-27 budget presentation to the General Assembly. This Brief analyzes some key spending and policy proposals included in the sprawling 777-page document.
This Policy Brief examines eight Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) across the country in terms of changes in three measures—population, private-sector employment and public-sector employment over the 10-year period 2015 to 2025.
Jobs in both private and public sectors are shown in relation to the MSA population. The analysis was undertaken to determine if different MSAs had substantially different changes in per capita employment and whether the level of government jobs had any relationship to private-sector gains.
Indeed, “dead on arrival” would be the most apropos way to characterize the chances of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed fiscal 2026-27 Pennsylvania budget being adopted by the General Assembly. For it is far more remarkable for the economic fallacies it promulgates than sound fiscal stewardship, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.
Pittsburgh Public Schools, facing a multimillion-dollar deficit that will force it to draw down precious emergency money from its reserve fund, could find partial relief by overhauling its contracting processes, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.
