New Yorkers collected $2.6 billion in welfare cash payments last year, city data shows
The 71% increase since 2022 comes as Mayor Mamdani's new budget allocates $14.63B for the Human Resources Agency
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}New York City doled out more than $2.6 billion in cash assistance to city residents in 2025, a Fox News Digital review of city records showed.
The money reached a record 864,999 people, a 30-year high not matched since before former Mayor Rudy Giuliani instituted major welfare reform in the early 2000s.
The $2.6 billion figure represents a 71% increase from 2022's $1.57 billion, data showed.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}MAYORS WANT TO KEEP HANDING OUT FREE CASH AFTER FEDERAL FUNDS DRIED UP
Sign at supermarket entrance with text reading We Welcome EBT customers and a SNAP logo in Lafayette, California, November 13, 2025. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
When coupled with payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the city paid out more than $7 billion in welfare to residents in 2024, according to a Fox News analysis of data from the city's Human Resources Administration (HRA).
The rise in welfare payments comes as some of New York City's wealthiest contemplate a Big Apple exodus due to what many have described as a policy environment unfriendly to businesses and moneymakers.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}NYC MAYOR MAMDANI CALLS THREAT OF RICH PEOPLE LEAVING NYC OVER TAXES 'IMAGINED'
Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin notably threatened to put a major Midtown renovation on hold for his Citadel offices after socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani targeted him by name in a video announcing a new tax on second homes in the city.
"When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich … Well, today we're taxing the rich. This pied-à-terre tax is specifically designed for the richest of the rich," Mamdani said while recording a video outside the building that houses Griffin's penthouse.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
"This is an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million whose owners do not live full-time in the city — like this penthouse, which hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin bought for $238 million."
Griffin called the video "inappropriate" in critical comments.
"What really upset me about the video was the fact that he put me in harm's way … And to put any citizen in harm's way is just inappropriate for one of our political leaders," Griffin said, also calling the video "creepy" and "frightening."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}On April 15, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted a video outside Ken Griffin’s Manhattan penthouse promoting a new "tax-the-rich" policy. (Spencer Platt/Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Though Mamdani inherited the state of his city's welfare system from his predecessors, his policy decisions indicate a continuation of the upward rise in payments.
The city's new nearly $126 billion budget that Mamdani and city councilors agreed to in June contains a $14.63 billion outlay for the HRA, which handles welfare and social services.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The 2026 budget allocated $11.97 billion for the HRA, giving the 2027 budget a social services earmark over $2.6 billion more than the previous year's.
The $14.63 billion for 2026 represents 14% of the city's total budget.
Fox News Digital contacted the HRA and Mayor Mamdani's office for further comment.