New York City fiscal health was bad before COVID-19

A new report found that New York City taxpayers are on the hook for $83,600. Truth in Accounting (TIA) released the City Combined Taxpayer Burden Report that analyzed the fiscal health of the 10 largest cities in the United States, including underlying government entities. Not only are city taxpayers on the hook for the city government’s debt, but also the debt of the state, county, school district, transit authority, and more.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Reserve recently announced that it would buy the municipal bond debt of the states and large cities. This report analyzed the fiscal health of the 10 most populated cities based on financial reports before COVID-19 hit. These cities went into the pandemic with bad fiscal health, and they will come out of the pandemic even worse.

The report calculates the Taxpayer Burden for each city and its underlying governments. A Taxpayer Burden is the approximate amount each taxpayer would have to give the government in order to pay off the government’s debt. This is calculated by taking the total debt for the government and dividing it by the total number of taxpayers. New York City is the only city in the report that includes underlying entities in their annual financial reports. This means New York City’s $83,600 combined Taxpayer Burden is made up of only city and state debt.

While the city of New York City has a Taxpayer Burden of $63,100, once the state debt of $20,500 is added in the combined Taxpayer Burden jumps to $83,600.

You can read the full report here and read New York City’s individual report here.