New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic Party’s primary for the New York City mayoral nomination has put his economic policies in the forefront as he aims to run the nation’s most populated city.
Mamdani, 33, is a Democratic member of the state assembly representing Queens who is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America as well as the Working Families Party.
Mamdani’s platform focused on a number of issues that have animated socialists in the Democratic Party, including raising the minimum wage, hiking taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans, cracking down on delivery apps, as well as investing in affordable housing and creating city-owned grocery stores.
His campaign proposes a new minimum wage law that would raise the wage floor for jobs in the city to $30 an hour by 2030, which would then be automatically increased based on changes in the cost of living.
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Mamdani has proposed raising the corporate tax rate in New York City to match the state of New Jersey’s tax rate of 11.5%, which his campaign believes will bring in $5 billion.
He also called for imposing an additional flat tax of 2% on New York households earning more than $1 million annually. To bring in additional funding for his plans, Mamdani’s campaign calls for hiring more tax auditors, collecting fines from landlords and reforms to procurement and contracting processes to raise $1 billion in revenue.
The assemblyman campaigned on building 200,000 new units of “permanently affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes” over the next decade – as well as immediately freezing rents for all stabilized tenants.
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His campaign also features a plan to “implement free childcare for every New Yorker aged 6 weeks to 5 years,” while also providing “baby baskets” to new parents and guardians that include items like diapers, baby wipes, nursing pads, post-partum pads, swaddles, and books,” at no cost to the new parents.
Mamdani has criticized delivery app platforms, with his campaign website stating that “deliveristas – 80,000 Black, brown and immigrant workers – are exploited by app companies who demand they complete deliveries at a dangerous pace.”
“Moreover, app companies have misclassified delivery workers as independent contractors, instead of employees, so that they can avoid providing them with the rights and benefits all workers deserve,” Mamdani’s website said. Delivery apps typically classify delivery workers as independent contractors, which gives them the flexibility to set their own hours and decide which deliveries they want to handle.
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To address what he sees as the risks created by delivery apps, Mamdani’s platform calls for strengthening licensure requirements for such apps while also working to “expand capacity and resources to support deliveristas, and improve street infrastructure including expanding DOT e-bike programs and investing in deliverista hubs.”
His campaign platform has also called for eliminating fares on city buses while expanding priority lanes and bus queue jump signals with dedicated loading zones for passengers.
Mamdani also proposed creating city-owned grocery stores by redirecting funds from corporate grocery stores, claiming that the city stores would be focused on “lower prices, not price gouging.”
The grocery stores wouldn’t pay rent or property taxes, which would allow them to reduce overhead and pass on savings to shoppers, according to Mamdani’s website. They will also buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on products and sourcing.
In a March interview, Mamdani estimated that a pilot program for this plan would cost $60 million to execute, but he argued the city is set to spend more than double that on corporate supermarkets.
FOX Business’ Daniella Genovese contributed to this report.
