New Watchdog Report: States that Voted for Trump Get Billions from MTA Spending

A new report released today by Reinvent Albany, a New York-based government watchdog organization, shows that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) spent nearly $19 billion outside New York from 2011 to 2024, supporting up to 247,000 jobs in politically blue, red, and purple states alike. (For the purposes of this analysis, “job” means job-years: a job-year is one job for one year. See the full report for more details.) 

It makes sense that blue states with large urban transit systems have large transit-related industries that the MTA patronizes. But taken together, the four red states where the MTA does substantial business see greater MTA spending than either California or Illinois alone (North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas). In total, companies in red states by U.S. Senate representation received more than $3.5 billion in MTA payments over 14 years. States that voted for Trump in 2024 received nearly $7 billion from the MTA over this period. (See our spreadsheet for details).

The report updates Reinvent Albany’s 2020 analysis of national MTA spending, which was released during the push for emergency transit funding at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The MTA is seeking $14 billion in federal funding for its 2025-2029 capital plan, and congestion pricing is budgeted to raise $15 billion for the MTA’s 2020-2024 capital plan. Federal funding cuts to the MTA and New York – such as those announced for the Gateway Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway this week – would only harm the MTA’s ability to purchase goods and services from across the country. Similarly, federal efforts to end congestion pricing would mean less capital dollars available to spend for the MTA: One-third of past MTA spending on vendors has been made outside of New York, across a total of 46 other states. The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has said it has begun work on a bill to replace the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, set to expire late in 2026. 

The MTA is the largest mass transit provider in the country, carrying 40% of national ridership and supporting the metropolitan region’s economy, which accounts for 8% of the U.S. GDP. With a $20 billion annual operating budget – larger than that of some states – and a daily ridership of 4 million during peak operations, the MTA’s contributions to the economy of the NYC Metro Region and the U.S. as a whole are vast.

The top states receiving MTA dollars were:

1. New York – $41B
2. New Jersey – $5B
3. Pennsylvania – $3B
4. Illinois – $1.9B
5. California – $1.7B
6. Minnesota – $734M
7. North Carolina – $716M
8. Connecticut – $714M
9. Ohio – $662M
10. Maryland – $574M
11. South Carolina – $531M
12. Massachusetts – $463M 
13. Virginia – $461M
14. Texas – $344M
15. Alabama – $268M

The MTA’s reach across the country is huge, including purchases of wooden railroad ties from West Virginia, tracks from Ohio, uniforms from South Carolina, software from California, Dell computers from Texas, HP copiers from Arkansas, police dogs from Alabama, and rail cars, buses and their parts from New York, Indiana, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania.

The full report is available on Reinvent Albany’s website, which includes an interactive map, lists of spending in all states, and the top vendors in each state, as well as the underlying data.

Click here to view the full report on Reinvent Albany’s website or as a PDF.