By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN
New York (CNN) — In New York City, the typical household spends more than half of its income on rent and 100,000 people sleep in homeless shelters every night.
“This is what a full-blown affordability crisis looks like,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine in a December report. Median rents in Manhattan have topped $5,400 a month.
The city’s cost-of-living crisis extends to food, child care and other parts of daily life: 1.4 million people, or 15% of the city’s population, is food insecure. A family must earn $334,000 to afford child care for a 2-year old, according to US Census Bureau data.
Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s next mayor, faces the enormous task of making it easier to get by in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Mamdani won the most votes of any New York City mayor in 60 years, propelled by his focus on working-class issues. Now he must deliver on his progressive agenda when the city’s economy is slowing, the federal government is cutting the social safety net and the city’s budget gap is growing.
Mamdani pledged to freeze rents and build more affordable housing, but many nonprofit organizations and developers that operate subsidized housing say they already can’t cover their costs.
And he wants to implement free care for every child ages 6 weeks to 5 years and eliminate fares on city-run buses.
But he needs state approval to raise taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents and corporations to pay for these plans, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul has thrown cold water on his plan to make the entire bus network free and make up the $1 billion in fares the MTA may lose from eliminating fares.
His ability to implement his agenda in office hinges on mobilizing his grassroots campaign supporters to push for higher taxes on the wealthy, more housing production and other priorities, said Kim Phillips-Fein, a history professor at Columbia University and the author of “Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics” on the city’s 1970s financial collapse.
His allies recently launched a nonprofit designed to build pressure on city and state lawmakers to pass his agenda in the city and state legislature in Albany. (A Mamdani spokesperson did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.)
“People thought Mamdani’s election was impossible a year ago, but it was accomplished through significant political organizing,” said Phillips-Fein. His success as mayor “will depend upon an alignment of political forces and continued organizing.”
Warning signs in the economy
Before the election, Mamdani’s opponents warned of an exodus of the ultra-wealthy from New York City as well as fiscal collapse if he won.
But the Read more