They are spending 150million that is 1442x what they are losing, even if their enforcement is reducing the number of fare jumpers it would take basically everyone jumping the line to make up the difference.

They'd save money just by eating the cost...

I cannot see how this ever economically works out.

Got some more numbers, this meme (surprise) isn't telling the whole story. I'm still not saying it works out, but it's not this simple.

Okay so the MTA has a budget of 19billion, of which $6.870 billion comes from fares, in 2022 they lost $285million in subway fares, and the police caught 105,000 people in 2023.

I cannot find where the $104k number is coming from, I assume that's the total amount owed by those they caught, but if they caught 105k people that's only a dollar a person so I don't know if it's that low or I'm misunderstanding the $104k number.

Again not saying it works out, but I'm not smart enough to do that math...