New Yorkers collected $2.6 billion in welfare cash payments last year, city data shows

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.

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.

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...

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.