Isophoric News · Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Watchdog group says New York's film and TV tax credit cost $68,538 per full-time job in 2025
New York paid a record $1.2 billion in film and TV production reimbursements in 2025, which works out to $68,538 per full-time job, according to an Oct. 30 analysis of Empire State Development data by Reinvent Albany, a government watchdog group. The group counted $1,199,391,181 in payments and 36,399,057 reimbursed work hours, which it converted to full-time jobs at 2,080 hours a year. It said six productions cost more than $100,000 per full-time job, led by Warner Bros.' "Companion" at $114,548. Reinvent Albany, which calls the program a "boondoggle," cited a state Department of Taxation and Finance study that it said found the state got back at most $0.31 in taxes for every subsidy dollar from 2018 through 2022, assuming every production happened because of the credit. The group said the credits reimburse producers for up to 45 percent of a production's cost.
