According to the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), City Transit Workers who do not receive the COVID-19 vaccine will not receive the $500,000 death benefit if they die from the disease.

Introduced last April, the MTA, working with the New York City Transit workers union agreed to provide any transit worker who was on active duty with the $500,000 lump sum payment as well as three years of health insurance for their survivors. That sum is 10 times what is normally paid to survivors of city Transit Workers who die from a workplace injury or illness.

In August, Cuomo announced that vaccines would be made mandatory for state workers including MTA employees. State workers who chose not to be vaccinated faced weekly testing beginning after Labor Day, and if they die from COVID after active duty, their families will not be eligible to receive either the tax-exempt $500,000 or the extra three months of health insurance.