The frontrunner of the New York City mayoral race has big plans ahead.
Zohran Mamdani’s meteoric rise as the Democratic candidate is not just fueled by his social media prowess. It is also spearheaded by his plans to provide universal childcare, make buses free, freeze the rent for rent-stabilized units, build more affordable housing, and create a pilot program experimenting with city-operated grocery stores.
His key plans would be funded by a proposed 11.5% increase in state corporate tax, which is estimated to bring in new annual revenue of $5 billion, as well $4 billion in income from a proposed 2% increase in income tax for NYC residents who make more than $1 million a year. Both plans would need the approval of the state legislature.
Mamdani has also proposed increasing the efficiency of city contracts and hiring more auditors to enforce the tax code, which his campaign estimates would bring an additional billion in revenue.
Affordability became a national focus in recent years due to pandemic-era inflation. Two new polls conducted in October by Lake Research Partners, a progressive polling firm, indicate that measures to boost affordability, such as raising the minimum wage, are popular across competitive swing districts and major cities.
Here is a look at Mamdani’s key plans for NYC and how much they will cost, as he faces off independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa on Election Day on November 4.
Universal childcare
Expanding free childcare to babies and to toddlers under the age of three is Mamdani’s most ambitious and costly plan.
NYC already offers free pre-school to many toddlers above three, but for parents with even younger kids, accessing childcare is a struggle. According to the New York Comptroller’s Office, annual average childcare prices for one child in New York in 2023 were about $12,000 for home-based care, $17,476 for toddler center-based care, and $20,459 for infant center-based care. A 2024 report by public policy think tank 5BORO Institute found that more than 80% of families cannot afford day care for their children.
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The Mamdani campaign estimates that providing childcare to all NYC families could cost $6 billion annually. The plan would be funded by the proposed tax raise on corporations and the wealthiest residents, and the campaign said it would also generate revenue through expanding the labor force. According to a January report from the NYC Comptroller, expanding free childcare would bring 14,000 mothers to the workforce and generate $900 million in labor income.
Fast and free buses
NYC has one of the highest densities of public transit users in the country, yet the city’s buses only average a speed of eight miles per hour, and Mamdani wants to change that.
Mamdani proposed that buses be completely free to the more than a million riders every day, who are mostly commuters for work purposes.
He also plans to create more busways that are limited to other through traffic to speed up the transit.
The city currently provides a 50% discount on public transit fares for low-income residents, but fare evasion has remained at around 40% every quarter since 2024. Mamdani’s campaign estimates that free buses would cost under $800 million every year.
This estimate does not factor in Mamdani’s plan to build more bus-only lanes.
More rent-stabilized homes — at better rates
Last summer, a city lottery opened for the first time in 15 years for NYC residents to get help paying their rent, and more than 630,000 people applied to get on the waitlist. The application only remained open for one week, but the need for affordable housing was on full display.
Mamdani plans to address the housing issue by tripling the city’s production of publicly subsidized, rent-stabilized homes, at 200,000 new units over the next 10 years. The plan would benefit households that make less than $70,000 a year, and it would cost the city $100 billion over the next decade.
Separate from the plan to build, Mamdani plans to freeze rent for the one million rent-stabilized units across the city, which could be achieved with relative ease and comes at zero direct cost to the city’s budget. This rent freeze would only affect rent-stabilized units, which make up a little under half of the city’s rental stock, and would not apply to market-rate units.
If elected, Mamdani as mayor could appoint members to the Rent Guidelines Board who align with his affordability goals.
The plan could draw the ire of building owners who would need to shoulder more costs in maintenance and property taxes.
City-operated grocery stores
Mamdani has also suggested a pilot program of five city-run supermarkets, one in each borough, to bring down the cost of groceries. The program would require approval from the city council, and these grocery stores would be selling food at wholesale prices.
According to the NY State Comptroller’s Office, the cost of food at home grew 65.8% between 2013 and 2023 in NYC, which far outpaces the rate of broader inflation.
Including cost of rent, utilities, warehouse, property taxes, and the initial cost to stock up goods, the Mamdani campaign estimates that the five stores would cost $60 million annually.
Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, is also pushing forward a similar idea. According to a feasibility study done in 2024, building three stores would cost the city $26.7 million upfront.
