The Public Utilities Commission sets the rates charged to customers. This is based on the Company's cost to provide services plus a fair return for the stockholders.
Exactly ...
... Otherwise known as businesses, whose cost of doing business will increase to pay for burying the wires.
... Otherwise known as families, whose household budgets will be altered (negatively) to pay for burying the wires.
I'm fairly sure that you will be able to see how those two problems can negatively affect the economy, likely causing some businesses to fail or shrink, and thereby rendering some folks unemployed.
I strongly encourage New Yorkers to tend their own knitting ... leave us hillbillies to make our own engineering trade-space decisions.