Breaking: The Mamdani Affordability Trap
How the Mamdani Budget Could Betrays the Working Class Who Elected Him
When Zohran Mamdani campaigned on a platform of radical affordability, his supporters—many of them low-income renters and first-time homeowners—expected a reprieve from the skyrocketing costs of New York living. Instead, the 2026 Preliminary Budget reveals a harsh fiscal reality: a $5.4 billion hole that the administration plans to fill by pulling the one lever guaranteed to hit the working class the hardest—property taxes.
Here is how the very people who championed this administration may end up paying the highest price for its fiscal strategy.
1. Indirect Costs for Renters
Mayor Mamdani campaigned on a promise to “freeze the rent,” yet property taxes are the single largest component of building operating costs. Historically, these costs are passed to tenants. Speaker Julie Menin highlighted this risk, stating that increasing the tax burden on property owners could “worsen the affordability crisis” for New Yorkers “already grappling” with high costs. If landlords face a 9.5% tax hike, the pressure for Rent Guidelines Board increases becomes a mathematical certainty, effectively turning a property tax into a rent hike.
2. Targeting Middle-Class Homeowners
Mamdani’s base includes many young families who recently bought homes in neighborhoods like East New York, Sunset Park, or parts of Queens. Because of the city’s regressive tax structure, these "lower-value" homes often have higher effective tax rates than luxury brownstones in Park Slope. A flat percentage increase to the tax rate hits a homeowner in a $600,000 Queens house far harder than it hits an owner in a $4 million Manhattan condo, whose assessment is protected by state-mandated caps.
3. Killing Neighborhood Small Businesses
Commercial tenants in New York often operate under “net leases,” where the tenant pays a share of the property tax. A 9.5% increase directly hits the “neighborhood small businesses” the City Council has vowed to protect. Speaker Menin noted that the Council believes there are “additional areas of savings” that should be exhausted before placing this burden on local commerce.
4. Relying on an “Ultimatum” Strategy
The Mayor has framed the property tax hike as the only alternative to state-level action, telling Albany there are “two paths”: state-level tax increases on the wealthy or “city-level measures that would shift the burden onto working New Yorkers.” By positioning the property tax as a “last resort” in a political standoff with Governor Hochul, the administration is using the financial stability of local homeowners as a bargaining chip. If the state does not agree to the Mayor’s demands, the “working people” whom the Mayor promised to protect will be the ones legally required to pay the $3.6 billion to $3.8 billion in additional annual property tax revenue projected through 2030.