Zohran Kwame Mamdani was sworn in as New York City’s first Muslim mayor on January 1st. Mamdani made several promises during his campaign, including freezing rent, rent assistance, universal childcare, free and fast buses, a department of community safety, city run grocery stores, increasing New York City’s minimum wage to $30/hr, and increasing the taxes of wealthy people.
A new administration’s first 100 days are a key checkpoint and sets the pace on implementing agendas or promises. In Mamdani’s first 100 days in office, all of his campaign promises have had varying levels of progress. Some promises are close to being fulfilled, some aren’t close, and others aren’t possible.
Housing Policies & Promises
Mamdani made some progress freezing the rent of one million rent stabilized apartments, but has yet to deliver. The Mayor of New York City doesn’t directly control rent freezes, or other pricing adjustments of rent stabilized apartments. Instead, there is the Rent Guidelines Board. The board is made up of 9 members who research maintenance cost, housing supply, take testimony from experts and investigate other economic factors to decide the annual price adjustment for rent stabilized apartments.
Mamdani isn’t a part of the Rent Guidelines Board but has significant influence through six appointees. Despite the appointments, it’s unclear if the board will actually freeze rent. The board’s legally obligated to follow the data and opinions of experts. The board will vote in June to decide the fate of rent stabilized apartments.
Since Mamdani can’t directly control rent freezes, he’s turned to other ideas in hopes of aiding New Yorkers in regard to housing. One idea is the “Rental Ripoff” hearings, where NYC officials hear the concerns of tenants such as landlord abuse, unsafe living conditions, and illegal fees.
In regards to rent assistance, Mamdani drastically changed his stance. Mamdani promised to expand the City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement or CityFHEPS, a rental assistance program; but has since backtracked. Mamdani appealed a court order to expand CityFHEPS citing the cost of the program and NYC’s 5.4 billion dollar budget deficit as a concern.
Universal Childcare
Mamdani made much more progress in terms of universal childcare. Mamdani and New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced a deal to expand the city’s preschool program on his 8th day. The deal established free childcare for 2 year and has 2,000 spots available. The program will begin in four communities, including school districts 6, 10, 18, 23, and 27.
The 2-K program is seen as a breakthrough in Mamdani’s overarching goal to provide universal childcare for children aged 6 weeks through 5-years-old. The program will run for 260 days, despite the school only being 180 days. It will operate between 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. This is a relief for parents who no longer have to leave work at the typical 3 p.m. end time to pick up their kids.
Transportation Policies & Promises
A key campaign promise was “fast and free buses.” Mamdani sought to not only eliminate bus fares, but increase the reliability, and speed of NYC’s buses. Similar to rent freezes, this promise has somewhat stalled. One key obstacle is NYC’s buses are controlled by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority or MTA, a state; not city agency. This means promises like eliminating bus fares are effectively impossible without the support of Governor Hochul and the MTA’s board.
The MTA Chairman Janno Lieber is willing to eliminate bus fares, but he’s reluctant without a plan to replace the lost revenue. This places Mamdani’s free and fast buses promise in limbo.
Social Policies & Promises
The Department of Community Safety is smaller than expected. Instead of an actual department, it’s the Office of Community Safety within the Mayoral Office. The office starts out with $260 million dollars of funding, and has two employees. One employee, Renita Francois serves as the first deputy mayor for community safety and has experience working in social programs. Francois will assess existing programs and constraints. New policies or programs haven’t been announced.
Locations are being decided for city-run grocery stores, but none have opened. The plan is to open 5 grocery stores across the 5 boroughs and offer cheaper groceries compared to existing markets. Grocery stores will operate on city-owned land, and won’t have to pay property taxes. Like Mamdani’s other policies, the program will be hard to implement due to the substantial cost and the city’s budget deficit. Mamdani announced the first grocery store will open in East Harlem by the end of 2027 during his 100 Days Address.
Minimum Wage & Taxes
Mamdani said he would raise the NYC minimum wage to $30/hour by 2030. Like the MTA, NYC doesn’t control the minimum wage; the state does. Despite the historical precedent, a bill was introduced to raise the minimum wage to $30/hour by 2030. It gives smaller businesses until 2032 to reach that benchmark.
The bill is legally questionable. NYC argues it can change the minimum wage through the Municipal Home Rule Law, but the argument is shaky. It’s likely companies will challenge the bill in court if it passes.
Just like minimum wage, NYC doesn’t control taxes either. The power historically rests with the state. It’s impossible to directly raise taxes on the rich without the support of Governor Hochul, who won’t raise taxes as she campaigns for reelection. We likely won’t see a tax on wealthier individuals at least until a New York Governor is elected.
Despite this setback, Mamdani announced on his 104th day an annual pied-a-terre tax for people that own second properties within NYC. The property will succumb to this tax if it’s a second residence and valued at $5 million dollars or more. While the mayor can’t control taxes based on income or purchases, he does control property taxes; so the pied-a-terre tax will likely stick.
So How Exactly Is He Doing?
While Mamdani provided hope for many New Yorkers, many of his policies are stuck in limbo. Mamdani has several policies like minimum wage or freezing rent that aren’t directly under his control. With the deficit, many of Mamdani’s social program reform and overall affordability policies can not be implemented.
Despite many setbacks, many people still support Mamdani. In a recent Marist Poll, 48% approved of Mamdani, while 30% disapproved, and 23% were unsure. This is likely due to Mamdani’s focus on “pothole politics.”
In other words, the idea is to raise the quality of life for New Yorkers through smaller policies and actions like filling 100,000 potholes or “Rental Ripoff” hearings while his broader policies and promises make it through legislation and negotiations. 100 days into his tenure, Mamdani has served as a breath of fresh air for many New Yorkers and many are excited for what comes next.
