“MONEY IN YOUR POCKET!”
The all-caps declaration from Mayor Eric Adams arrived in late summer, in the form of a news release promoting a plan to connect more New Yorkers with benefits like child care vouchers and free tax preparation. A few weeks later, Gov. Kathy Hochul sent out a notice with a nearly identical headline — “MONEY IN YOUR POCKETS!” — which cited her push to increase financial aid for local college students.
After the presidential election, the frenzy began in earnest.
New Yorkers vying to be the city’s next mayor and comptroller and candidates for the City Council trumpeted plans aimed at lowering the cost of housing, child care and groceries. Mr. Adams stood in front of a gigantic scroll listing his efforts to build “a safer, more affordable city” in 2024.
New York is facing a once-in-a-generation affordability crisis that has left roughly half of city households struggling to pay for basic necessities. Even middle- and upper-income families are eyeing the exits, as they weigh the costs of raising a family here.
As New Yorkers consider who will run their city and state in 2025 and beyond, the message from candidates is clear: Vote for me, and I’ll make living here more affordable.
That promise has taken on fresh urgency as the state’s Democratic leadership scrambles to apply lessons from President-elect Donald J. Trump’s election to their own campaigns. Mr. Trump, a Republican, made major inroads in New York, a blue state reeling from rising costs, including in some of its poorest neighborhoods, long Democratic strongholds.
Mr. Adams, who is up for re-election this year, and Ms. Hochul, who must defend her seat in 2026, are seeing deep frustration over pocketbook issues reflected in their own sinking approval ratings.
Now, incumbent politicians and their challengers are all vying to claim the mantle of New York’s affordability candidate.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” said Bill de Blasio, the city’s former mayor, who rose to the top of a crowded field by running a campaign focused on income inequality. “Why did it take Donald Trump to wake people up to the things we were talking about in 2013?”
While New York’s current leaders might dispute that timeline, there’s little doubt that most Democratic politicians have begun to home in on the same message at the same time. That’s rare in a place where voters are generally concerned about a wide spectrum of problems, including crime, homelessness and the quality of public transportation and schools.
The sprint to win the local affordability Olympics was on display over a 10-day stretch last month.
On Dec. 3, Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn state senator, launched his bid for mayor with a plan to build one million new homes. The next day, Mr. Adams proposed cutting income taxes for hundreds of thousands of low-income New Yorkers, an initiative he called “Axe the Tax.”
“How do we put money back into the pockets of New Yorkers?” the mayor asked at a news conference that day. The Independent Budget Office later found that less than 4 percent of the city’s taxpayers would benefit from his initiative.
A few days later, Ms. Hochul proposed sending millions of New Yorkers “inflation refund” checks of $300 or $500 next year. “It is your money,” the governor said, “and it should be back in your pockets.”
The proposal was criticized by fiscal conservatives and seized upon by one of the governor’s potential 2026 primary challengers, Representative Ritchie Torres from the Bronx. “A one-time check will not compensate for the double-digit increases in inflation that New Yorkers have suffered during the Governorship of Kathy Hochul,” he wrote.
The following day, Siena College released a poll finding that more than 40 percent of New York voters believe reducing the cost of living should be the State Legislature’s top priority in the new year — followed by creating more affordable housing.
The blitz intensified. On Dec. 12, Zohran Mamdani, a Queens state assembly member who is running for mayor, unveiled a plan to open five municipal grocery stores, which he said would help reduce the price of groceries. That same afternoon, Harvey Epstein, who is running to represent part of downtown Manhattan in the City Council, released an “affordability for all” housing plan to build and preserve housing and cooperatives for middle-and-low-income New Yorkers.
Two days later, a City Council bill that would put landlords, rather than tenants, on the hook for broker fees became law. The following week, Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president who is running for city comptroller, released a plan to provide free child care for children under 2.
All the while, New York’s top Republicans focused their public messaging on affordability around an issue that many Democrats agree with: stopping congestion pricing, a plan that aims to provide funding for mass transit in New York City by charging motorists to enter Manhattan at 60th Street or below.
Ms. Hochul paused the program last summer, arguing that New Yorkers could not afford the proposed $15 fee to drive into busiest parts of Manhattan, but revived it a few months later with a $9 toll. The plan is set to take effect on Sunday.
Nicole Malliotakis, New York City’s lone Republican House member, started calling the new congestion pricing plan the “Hochul hoax” and accused the governor of “taxing New Yorkers to death.”
All the politicking serves a real purpose, said Grace Rauh, the executive director of the 5Boro Institute, a think tank.
“The best-case scenario for the future of New York is that we have a really robust conversation about serious policies to address the affordability crisis,” she said. Ms. Rauh said New Yorkers should demand a genuine contest of ideas over the next few election cycles.
“I think the public is clamoring for big change, not incremental change,” she added.
Sweeping change on affordability has been hard to come by — at least until recently.
Last month, Mr. Adams’s plan to create 80,000 new homes over the next 15 years was approved by the City Council. The results of that initiative, known as “City of Yes,” could help define the mayor’s legacy.
Though Ms. Hochul’s own ambitious housing plan faced strong resistance from suburban legislators in 2023 and fell apart, a version of that proposal passed in Albany last year and has spurred development across the state.
Perhaps the most significant affordability program in New York City was launched a full decade ago, when Mr. de Blasio created free, full-day prekindergarten classes, which saved many families tens of thousands of dollars they would have otherwise spent on private pre-K.
Mr. Adams cut funding for some of Mr. de Blasio’s pre-K programs and soon faced criticism from city parents, including relatively high-earning families who had found themselves feeling squeezed . The backlash prompted the mayor to restore some of the funding, a demonstration how perilous it can be for politicians to cut back on affordability programs.
Now, with New Yorkers of nearly every socioeconomic class struggling to live comfortably in one of the most expensive cities in the world, voters are likely to hold local politicians accountable for how much easier they make it to live here, said Jonathan Bowles, the executive director of the Center for an Urban Future, a think tank.
“It’s about time,” he said.
The post Who Is New York’s ‘Affordability’ Candidate? Nearly Everyone. appeared first on New York Times.
