New York local governments, including New York City, share the cost of social services and Medicaid, which elsewhere are borne mainly at the state level. Nonetheless, New York’s state government spends considerably more than the national average, as shown in this chart featured in the Empire Center’s new report, Blueprint for a Better Budget: A Plan of Action for New York State.
In fact, New York State (at the state level alone, that is) manages to spend considerably more than the national per-capita or unit-of-service average on nearly every core function of state government, including transportation, education, prisons, mental health, the Legislature and the court system.
There’s more where this came from in the Blueprint.