NYC Mayor’s Race: Cuomo presents plan on affordability, painting Mamdani’s pitch as irresponsible and unrealistic

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo broke down his affordability platform at a Thursday press conference in Midtown. He called the cost of living a “major issue” in the 2025 NYC Mayor’s race and offered alternatives to plans pitched by Assembly Member and Democratic socialist nominee Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens).

Cuomo discussed transportation, groceries, wages, and taxes, comparing each tenet of his plan to Mamdani’s platform. The former governor, who lost to Mamdani in the primary, argued that the lawmaker’s affordability proposals — from making buses free to opening a pilot city-owned grocery store program — are irresponsible and unrealistic.

“Why would you subsidize the rich?” Cuomo asked, advocating for a 100% bus and subway subsidy for qualifying New Yorkers instead of free buses for all. “I get the theory of socialism, and government provides, government controls. I get that. But besides playing socialist, why should New Yorkers subsidize the bus fare for rich people? Why? Why should they pay my bus fare?”

Cuomo also asked why the Assembly member’s plan for free buses did not include a similar plan for trains.

“What happened to subways? More people ride subways. You just leave that out?” Cuomo said.

The presentation was the second of its kind from Cuomo, who has taken to sitting the candidate at a table and presenting issue-oriented slides to reporters. This mimics his briefing style, which became well known during the COVID-19 pandemic’s deadly peak in the spring of 2020, the height of his popularity.

While Thursday’s theme was affordability — the issue that, by most accounts, decided the Democratic primary — Cuomo similarly presented his plan Monday on crime and public safety.

Thursday’s presentation did not include Cuomo’s plans for housing, though the former governor has said he would seek to build or preserve 500,000 new units of affordable housing as mayor.

Cuomo fears unintended consequences of Mamdani vision

In his alternative plan to Mamdani’s pitch for city-owned and operated grocery stores, Cuomo suggested improved food benefits and subsidies for qualifying New Yorkers. The former governor’s plan, he explained, would provide a food subsidy for low-income New Yorkers who do not meet the threshold for SNAP benefits — the federal food stamp program recently slashed by President Donald Trump’s reconciliation bill.

Cuomo would give $100 each month to people making 130-150% of the federal poverty level, a plan that would cost the city about $200 million each year, he said. Cuomo contrasted that with Mamdani’s plan to open city-run grocery stores, which he claimed would put undue pressure on private, small businesses.

“You open a government-run grocery store, you’re going to be competing with the private grocery stores, you’re competing with the bodegas, maybe put them out of business, maybe cost jobs,” Cuomo said.

The former governor also noted prior examples of city-run grocery stores that failed, like one in Kansas City.

On wages, Cuomo also slammed Mamdani’s plan to raise the minimum wage from $17/hour to $30/hour by 2030, calling it unrealistic and dangerous for businesses and jobs. Instead, Cuomo proposed raising the minimum wage to $20/hour.

The former governor also criticized Mamdani’s corporate tax proposal, which advocates for bringing New York State’s corporate tax up from 7.25% to 11.50%. In addition to NYC’s existing corporate taxes, Cuomo said, the move would drive corporations out of the city. Cuomo called the proposal for a statewide corporate tax “naïve and a political impossibility.”

Cuomo described Mamdani’s financial plans as a whole as “anti-business socialism.”

The Mamdani campaign responded in a statement to amNewYork, admonishing the former governor’s views and suggesting that Cuomo as mayor would only exacerbate the problems facing the city. They also hit him for his alleged phone call about the race with President Trump, as reported in the New York Times Wednesday; both Cuomo and Trump denied the call happened.

“Trusting Andrew Cuomo to address New York’s affordability crisis is the equivalent of tasking an arsonist with putting out a fire — he created this crisis,” Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec wrote in a statement to amNewYork. “Throughout his career, he systemically gutted our unions and social services, screwing over working people to please Republicans and billionaires. Donald Trump’s chosen candidate for Mayor would only continue his lifelong assault on working people and do the bidding of the GOP billionaires funding his flailing campaign.”