Image source: Bingjiefu He

By: Ruhan Ganpath

Edited By: Zane Govindraj

Months into his mayoral tenure, Zohran Mamdani’s administration has already been a regular fixture on the headlines of front-pages everywhere. Has he lived up to the hype generated by his campaign promises?

From the outset, Zohran Mamdani’s campaign centered around the promise of a more affordable New York, a promise that seemed to especially galvanize hordes of young voters. According to CNN’s exit polls, “cost of living” stood out as the most important issue in the minds of 55% of voters, and Mamdani finished with a strong 66% of votes from that bloc. Despite losing the majority of voters 50 and older in November’s general election (who also constituted 55% of all voters), the former assemblyman overwhelmingly carried all younger voting demographics, including winning 77% of the vote among 18 to 24-year-olds and 78% among 24 to 29-year-olds. 

The prevailing expectations of what economic policy would look like under the administration of the self-proclaimed democratic socialist spelled sweeping reforms and a more thoroughly planned economy. Mamdani himself promised a number of changes, including free buses, a rent freeze, and government-owned grocery stores. Just over three months into his mayoral tenure, Mamdani has already set to work on a number of initiatives to mixed reception. On one hand, just eight days into his term, he collaborated with New York State Governor Kathy Hochul on a significant expansion of childcare in the city that could make such services freely available to children 2 and under. On the other hand, his handling of the first winter storm of his term has come under heavy scrutiny. While the storm was of unprecedented scale, and his response to the second storm was widely praised, the first one saw perhaps the low point of his term thus far. At least 17 New Yorkers have been found dead with at least 13 of those deaths coming as a direct result of hypothermia, and many are attributing it to City Hall’s handling of the homeless situation and storm response. 

His to-be-realized proposals have been just as polarizing. While first-time homebuyers and younger people fell in love with his affordability-focused policies, billionaires and super PACs spent massive sums to try and prevent his breakneck rise to the mayorship, and even after his victory, much debate was had over the viability of his economic agenda. Up to this point, even the voices of those who work in and study economics remain divided on the prospects of his administration. 

 Firstly, a distinction needs to be made between the classical definition of socialism and what Mamdani is referring to when he labels himself as a democratic socialist. Mamdani has long been associated with the democratic socialist movement: a former member of the Democratic Socialists of America, he made an inauguration day vow to govern as such, but what does that mean exactly? 

His economic policy agenda includes freezing the rent for stabilized tenants in New York, making MTA buses free, and installing city-owned grocery stores. Such policies were the driving force behind his campaign’s ability to drum up support from Gen Z and millennial voters, and were characterized by allies and opponents alike as socialist and further left than most American politicians had ever been willing to go. 

However, classical theory suggests that his policies are far less “socialist” than billed by both sides, and that generally speaking, all he has advocated for are welfare reforms within a capitalist free market framework. Georgetown professor and historian Michael Kazin mentions the distinction between the classical definition of socialism, in other words, total government ownership of the means of production and the complete loss of a free market system, and modern democratic socialism. He explains how “Mamdani does not intend to give wage earners control of their workplaces or to turn private businesses into public property, as Karl Marx advocated (along with other renowned socialists he inspired like Eugene Debs… and Vladimir Lenin).” The definition of socialism (and democratic socialism) has been colloquially altered from its textual origins amidst heavy political discourse, especially within the last decade or so. 

After the 2016 presidential campaign of self-proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, the ideology came under heavy fire from the American political right, who classed it alongside the economic and governance institutions of the former USSR. According to an Australian Journal of Politics and History publication by Dr. Gintaras Mitrulevičius of Mykolas Romeris University, the historical significance of Marxism has caused many scholars to “adhere to an economistic concept of socialism, according to which socialisation and a planned economy are considered necessary conditions for a future socialist society. Socialists who rejected these economic assumptions were excluded from the socialist community by proponents of this economistic view.” However, in the modern day, both proponents of democratic socialism and social democracy do not generally advocate for a total planned economy, and neither has Mamdani. Mitrulevičius goes on to state that “over time, social democracy was dominated by a non-Marxist, mainly ethical understanding of socialism, according to which the mandatory nationalisation of the means of production, exchange and distribution was not necessary.” For the remainder of this article, Mamdani and his policies will be referred to as democratic socialist in nature, which they are colloquially speaking, but not as classically socialist.

Now to address the actual policy, starting with perhaps Mamdani’s most distinctly democratic socialist policy, city-owned grocery stores. According to his official platform:

“As Mayor, Zohran will create a network of city-owned grocery stores focused on keeping prices low, not making a profit. Without having to pay rent or property taxes, they will reduce overhead and pass on savings to shoppers. They will buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on products and sourcing. With New York City already spending millions of dollars to subsidize private grocery store operators (which are not even required to take SNAP/WIC!), we should redirect public money to a real ‘public option’.”

In addition to making groceries affordable, the main function of this initiative would likely be to alleviate the food insecurity that plagues parts of the city. According to the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy, the 2024 citywide rate of food insecurity was 14.6%, with a rate of at least 11.5% in each borough. Unlike much of the publicity around his agenda, this policy would likely do more to address the lack of supply of groceries in needy areas rather than their price. 

Thus, while critics would likely point to the issue of government interference within the free market, the prevailing issue is not that private stores are overpricing groceries, but that they simply do not exist to the extent they need to. Besides, according to Justin Sean Myers and Christine Caruso of Marist College and Eastern Connecticut State University, respectively, “attempts to bring grocery stores back to low-income communities solely through financial incentive programs without either increasing the incomes of residents or lowering the prices of produce will have limited success in improving food access.” A financial solution, i.e., a subsidy or totally publicizing the industry, will likely fail in any case because it does not address the issue of accessibility. However, addressing the issue with a small network of city-run stores in areas that struggle with access will likely remedy the issue of scarcity in the five boroughs without compromising the free market and the grocery industry.

Next, the free bus initiative. Due to rising MTA fares, the administration has stated that they will “permanently eliminate the fare on every city bus — and make them faster by rapidly building priority lanes, expanding bus queue jump signals, and dedicated loading zones to keep double parkers out of the way.” 

Practically, the policy would almost assuredly increase ridership as MTA buses become entirely free of cost, but the concerns of implementing are loss of revenue and congestion. MTA representatives have already voiced concern over the revenue that could stand to be lost with such a policy. Around $700 million dollars annually could be at stake if buses are made free.

However, some such initiatives have been shown to positively impact employment. In Brazil, free transit has been attempted in various localities and has been shown to increase employment by 3.2% and reduce emissions by 4.1%. Relatively speaking, this issue is somewhat open-and-shut compared to the other two being analyzed, but only because its effects are so scarcely researched, the only way to find out how it will affect New York is to try it. It can be argued that making buses free may not be the immediately-perfect solution, and that perhaps the fare should be progressively reduced and then the effects of those reductions tested. Regardless, it is hard to call the policy either way without experimentation in a city with as vast a transit system as New York.

Finally, and perhaps his most scrutinized agenda item, the rent freeze. The Mamdani administration’s official website describes the plan as follows:

“As Mayor, Zohran will immediately freeze the rent for all stabilized tenants, and use every available resource to build the housing New Yorkers need and bring down the rent. The number one reason working families are leaving our city is the housing crisis. The Mayor has the power to change that.”

Rent-stabilized housing is an institution already set up to combat New York’s affordability crisis. Certain buildings, often ones with six or more units constructed before 1974, are given limits as to how much their rent can be increased on an annual basis. A rent freeze would go a step further and halt all increases on rent for these (usually affordable) housing units, and the policy has been regarded as a hallmark of Mamdani’s uniquely progressive agenda. While the policy has been well-received among Mamdani’s key voting blocs, economists have long been sour on the concept of freezing rent without addressing the issue of supply. 

Intuitively, within a supply and demand system, to cap the price of a good leads to a shortage of supply as landlords stop supplying housing at a particularly low price, and the shortage may only compound as nominal prices for housing increase while the freeze cap remains constant. The only situation in which a rent freeze would be a viable policy option would be during a housing surplus where units were being supplied at unaffordable prices to a great enough number of citizens, and the average price level needed to decrease. While that is the case in certain situations, most professionals agree that the real issue at hand is lack of supply. 

In a city as built up and simultaneously fast-growing as New York, creating new housing to accommodate each of the city’s eight million residents has become the root cause issue to the housing crisis. For Mamdani’s hypothetical rent freeze to work, his administration would likely need to first create housing en masse, and in fact his platform mentions a plan to create 200,000 units of affordable housing within the next ten years. If New York gets to a point where a stable housing supply exists and an affordability problem arises and persists, then a rent freeze can become a reasonable course of action. In that case, the negative effect of landowners leaving the market after the institution of a rent freeze or cap would be offset by the volume of available housing. Mamdani has yet to give a specific timeline for implementing the freeze, and will likely be unable to do so immediately anyway, but its implementation must be viewed in tandem with the progression of his initiatives to create housing units.

Just two months into the Mamdani administration, the young mayor has been faced with a combination of challenges, praise, and scrutiny alike that is unlike anything we have seen previously for a newly-elected mayor of New York. Economists remain divided on the efficacy of his policies, with the common theme being that his platform proposes unique and untried solutions to issues that all come with similar potential financial drawbacks. If implemented recklessly, we may watch Mamdani’s support erode just as fast as it came together. However, with a decent helping of prudence in the execution of his plans, his and his base’s visions of an affordable New York may be able to come together in the long run.