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.MAYORS WANT TO KEEP HANDING OUT FREE CASH AFTER FEDERAL FUNDS DRIED UPSign 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.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.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 ...