NYC Comptroller Lander Outlines Risks of Trump Presidency to New York City

New York, NY — The election of Donald Trump poses significant threats to New York City’s budget, economy, infrastructure, and people, according to a new report from the New York City Comptroller’s office, Protecting New York City. The report analyzes actions during Trump’s first term as president, his 2024 campaign, and the Project 2025 blueprint to identify the most acute potential threats posed to New York City and inform conversations about how to prepare for them. 

“Donald Trump’s presidency presents grave risks for New York City – from defunding education, housing, healthcare, and transit, to an inflation-spike caused by tariffs, to the mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers,” said New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. “Protecting New York City provides a clear-eyed view of those threats, so that New Yorkers can prepare to face them together.” 

The report finds that potential federal budget cuts, like those proposed during Trump’s first term and during his campaign, could cause significant harm for New York City’s public schools, hospitals, housing, and childcare. Trump’s proposed economic policies would likely cause a large spike in inflation and reduce housing production. The potential elimination or reduction of infrastructure and climate investments could halt key transit and resiliency projects. Many New Yorkers—including immigrants, LGBTQ+, those who need abortion care, and workers seeking to organize unions—would see rollbacks to their civil rights that jeopardize their lives and safety.       

Coinciding with the release of the report, Comptroller Lander led a roundtable of civic, business, labor, religious, and community leaders to discuss how to best prepare to protect New York City and New Yorkers who may be targeted by the policies of the incoming Trump Administration. 

Comptroller Lander continued, “New Yorkers have faced many threats and crises in the past, and we do it best by coming together across communities. The cross-sector group of leaders who met this morning represent New Yorkers in business, labor, service, advocacy, community, and faith, with many different points of view. What unites them is a love of New York City and a fierce desire to protect its people and its future.”   

New York City’s Budget 

• Federal Funding for City Operations & Individuals: New York City’s FY 2025 Adopted Budget includes $7.92 billion in federal grants, approximately 7% of the total budget, providing funding for critical services like cash assistance, education, housing, childcare, and other social services.  
• Public Education: New York City’s public schools, CUNY, and early childhood education programs receive $3.5 billion annually in federal funds. The Trump administration could reduce or eliminate that funding, redirect vouchers or Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), or subject the City to unacceptable conditions. 
• Funding for Housing & Homelessness: New York City relies on federal resources for affordable housing preservation and development, NYCHA, and programs to prevent homelessness including housing vouchers.  
• Public Hospitals: Project 2025 calls for restricting federal funds to public health care systems like Health and Hospitals (H+H), that perform abortions and provide gender-affirming care. H+H serves 1.2 million New Yorkers each year. 

 

Economic Impacts  

• Projected Impact of Trump’s Economic Policies: Likely economic policies regarding tariffs, immigration, and health care would cause higher prices and reduced labor supply, affecting New York City. Additional tax cuts may offset price increases, but will likely be targeted to higher-income earners. Changes to regulatory policies would also primarily benefit high-income filers and corporations and would increase the City’s tax revenues at least in the short run.  
• SALT Deduction: The removal of the SALT deduction cap would narrow the tax differential with other jurisdictions, particularly at the top of the income distribution and improve New York City’s competitiveness. 
• Impact on the City’s Housing Construction & Supply: In addition to the threats posed to federal funding to the City’s housing and homelessness programs, Trump’s campaign proposals threaten to further increase the sky-high cost of construction, worsen labor shortages, and further constrain new development and housing supply in New York City.
   

Infrastructure  

• Congestion Pricing: The most immediate and financially significant risk of a Trump Administration USDOT for New York City’s public transit system would likely be an effort to cancel the MTA’s pending congestion pricing program. Governor Hochul and the MTA should move immediately to implement the program prior to January 20, 2025 in order to put the program on the firmest possible legal footing. 
• Transportation & Infrastructure Funding: New York City depends extensively on federal funding for transportation (including public transit, where New York receives a dramatically outsized share) and infrastructure. 
• Climate Protection: Uncertainty surrounds the continued funding of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and reauthorization of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). New York City and State enshrined crucial climate goals through the passage of the Climate Mobilization Act (including LL97) and the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), but federal funding is critical to those goals.
   

Protecting New York City’s Vulnerable Populations  

• Immigrant New Yorkers: Immigration is a core part of New York City’s history, population, identity and economic strength. Trump is promising “mass deportations,” which could tear families apart, hollow out communities throughout the city, devastate our economy, and violate New York City’s values as an immigrant city.  
• Access to Safe & Legal Abortion: Despite the passage of New York State Proposition 1, which puts protections for abortion care and against discrimination in the New York State Constitution, a Trump presidency threatens to significantly curtail access to safe and legal abortions through executive action including reductions in federal funding, restrictions on certain medications, and the advancement of federal laws that would criminalize the provision of care across state lines.  
• Gender-Affirming Care & Trans Rights: The Trump campaign promises to end taxpayer funding for gender affirming surgeries, seek to severely limit access to gender affirming care for transgender Americans, and roll back civil rights protections for transgender Americans, obtaining identification with correct gender, excluding sexual orientation or gender identity in sex discrimination laws, and prohibiting transgender children from sports teams.  
• Access to Health Care: While the most harmful policies proposed by Project 2025 will require congressional approval, such as the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a second Trump Administration will likely bring policies that raise the costs of healthcare and reduce access to healthcare programs that serve millions of New Yorkers. 
• Workers’ Rights: The previous Trump Administration rolled back the ability of unions and workers to organize, scaled back federal enforcement of wage and safety standards, and implemented deregulation that left the U.S. more vulnerable to the ravages of the pandemic.  
• Fighting Discrimination & Advancing Racial Equity: Project 2025’s seeks to eliminate anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ Americans and target “critical race theory,” which in practice could leave the City’s racial equity work vulnerable to challenges. 

Read the NYC Comptroller’s report here. 

Roundtable participants included: 

Business 

• Dev Awasthi, REBNY 
• Sarah Brown (representing Julie Samuels), Tech:NYC  
• Ray McGuire, Lazard 
• Jamie Rubin, Aligned Climate Capital and NYCHA Chair 
• Elizabeth Velez, The Velez Organization 
• Kathy Wylde, Partnership for New York City 
• Megan Wylie (representing Carlo Scissura), NY Building Congress  

Labor 

• Vinny Alvarez, NYC Central Labor Council 
• Michelle Crentsil, New York State Nurses Association 
• Aaron Eisenberg, United Auto Workers 
• Sarah Leberstein, 32BJ SEIU 
• Helen Schaub, 1199 SEIU 

Human Services 

• Rana Abdelhamid, Malikah  
• Rich Buery, Robin Hood 
• Michelle Jackson, Human Services Council 
• Jennifer Jones Austin, Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies (FPWA) 
• Susan Stamler, United Neighborhood Houses 

Advocacy 

• Robert Agyemang, New York Immigration Coalition 
• Eddie Bautista, NYC Environmental Justice Alliance 
• Jasmine Gripper, NY Working Families Organization 
• Donna Lieberman, NYCLU 
• Jose Lopez, Make the Road NY 
• Theo Moore, ALIGN 
• Dipal Shah, Planned Parenthood of Greater NY 
• Kim Sweet, Advocates for Children 

Faith 

• Rev. Chloe Breyer, Interfaith Center  
• Ashely Gonzalez (representing Bishop Matthew Heyd), Episcopal Diocese of New York 
• Rev. Emma Jordan Simpson, Auburn Seminary 
• Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum 

Government/Budget/Policy 

• Vicki Been, NYU Furman Center 
• Ingrid Gould Ellen, NYU Wagner Graduate School 
• Jacqueline Sherman, Independent Budget Office 
• Reggie Thomas, NYC Mayor’s Office 
• Jumaane Williams, Public Advocate

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