New Yorkers Paying $75,000 for Each Film/TV Job
Reinvent Albany analyzed data published by the Empire State Development Corporation and found New York taxpayers shelled out $75,000 in cash for each film/TV job subsidized in 2024, up from $67,000 in Q4 2022.
The subsidies, though called “tax credits,” are direct state reimbursements to the production companies who employ film and TV production workers. The state basically writes a check to producers for 30% of the “qualified” costs of an eligible production.
The spike in costs comes just a year after the Governor and State Legislature approved new tax credits totaling $7.7 billion ($700 million x 11 years) for the film/TV industry.
New Findings
- $36/hour taxpayer subsidy was paid for each film/TV production worker
- $74,900/year taxpayer subsidy was paid per full-time job equivalent (FTE)
- NYS paid out $607 million in film/TV subsidies combined in Q1 and Q2. This time, the high payouts could be due to production delays from the recent industry strikes.
- At least 8,106 full-time equivalent film/TV production workers were subsidized.
New Data in Q1, Q2 of 2024 NYS Film/TV Tax Credit
- $607,173,112 in NYS payments to productions was reported
- $2,156,754,127 in qualified costs were reported
- 16,861,325 credit eligible hours worked were reported
- 86,042 “hires” were reported
Analysis of New 2024 State Data
Source: Empire State Development Authority’s 2024 Q1 and Q2 reports on Film Tax Credits. We note that ESD data is still not downloadable as tabular data nor available in the Open NY portal and Database of Economic Incentives.
ESD’s data also contains several errors, with totals that do not add up in the PDF, and one project – Love Life S2 – totaling more than $6 million per job. Since this entry is likely incorrect it was removed from the analysis.
Methodology
Full-time Equivalents = reported hours/2,080 hours (full-time equivalent hours)
Subsidy/Hours = dollars paid by NYS/credit eligible hours
Subsidy/Full-Time Job = dollars paid by NYS/number of FTE jobs