Title: 30 Issues in 30 Days: Jobs and the Minimum Wage

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we continue our 30 Issues in 30 Days election series. It's day 27 in issue 27, jobs and wages in the New York City mayoral race. Both Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani have proposed raising the minimum wage. It's currently $16.50 an hour in New York City and will rise to $17 an hour in January. Cuomo is proposing a $20 minimum wage for the city by 2027. Here he is at a campaign stop in May.

Andrew Cuomo: $20 that is the fair wage, and that's what we want and that's what we're going to get passed.

Brian: Mamdani is proposing a $30 an hour minimum wage by 2030. He was asked about that by a Channel 7 WABC reporter on the same day as that Cuomo clip.

Reporter: You think $30 an hour is maybe too much for somebody who's scooping up French fries?

Zohran Mamdani: No, because when you look at the statistics of what is a living wage in New York City today, it already is close to $30 an hour.

Brian: The minimum wage is one issue. Now, we'll play clips of Mamdani, Cuomo, and Curtis Sliwa from the Crain's New York Business Candidates Forum earlier this month. Then we'll talk to Crain's politics reporter Nick Garber. We'll start with Cuomo at the Crain's Business Forum. Each of these clips is going to be about a minute and a half. You will hear he emphasizes companies choosing to leave the state as he answers the moderator's question at the event.

Moderator: The financial sector, 20% of New York City's economy, is shrinking here while growing in Texas and Florida. How would you keep jobs and growth in New York?

Andrew Cuomo: Oh, that's an easy one. Beg.

[laughter]

Andrew Cuomo: Look, we have to change the fundamental dynamic. We have a hangover New York arrogance. The hangover New York arrogance is we assume there is no place else for you to go. It's that old New Yorker magazine, right? It's only the East Coast. There's New York, and there's nothing to the West. There are actually other states out there, and you can theoretically move there. More and more it is happening. We have this attitude, and we still have this attitude.

We can raise taxes, nobody will really leave. We can be difficult on regulations, nobody will really leave. We can be impossible to deal with, and nobody will really leave. Our regulatory environment can be bizarre, and nobody will really leave. They've left. They are leaving. You have to change the attitude 180 degrees, and you have to start to attract them back. You have to say, "First of all, I get it. I get it, and I want to partner with you. Come back, I'll offer you incentives. We'll do startup capital. Let me help you find a space. Let me help you find land." I did that as governor. I was like the chief marketing officer.

Brian: Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent, as you know, talking about jobs at the Crain's Business Candidates Forum this month, on what he called a hangover New York arrogance that companies can't leave, and saying he would partner with businesses. Now, we'll hear a clip of Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani at the forum in which he also promises a partnership, also using that word, as he addresses business leaders in the room.

Zohran Mamdani: Oftentimes, when I speak about an affordability agenda, it's spoken of as if it is only a reflection of the needs of working-class New Yorkers. Yet, however, when I have spoken to business leaders, I have also heard the impact that this lack of affordability is having on the ability to not only start a business here in this city, but to sustain that very business. The ways in which it is demanding businesses pay for the failures of the private sector by having to add premiums in the salaries that are offered or stipends, perhaps, for the very kinds of things that city government could be providing, namely, childcare.

I know that as I speak, this is a challenging time for the private sector. We added fewer than 1,000 private sector jobs in the first half of this year. Two dozen tech companies in our city have laid off workers this year, part of a national trend, which has seen 150,000 tech jobs cut across 549 companies just last year alone. What I want my policies to do is not only to make it easier for working people to afford this city, but also to ensure that businesses are able to attract the top talent to this city. I'm eager for the relationship between the public sector and the private sector to be more of a partnership than it ever has before.

Brian: Zohran Mamdani at the Crain's New York Business Candidates Forum earlier this month. We heard a clip of Andrew Cuomo before that. Now, here's Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa from the same event. He was asked how he would help the small businesses like mom and pop shops.

Curtis Sliwa: The mom and pop shops, right?

Moderator: Yes.

Curtis Sliwa: Okay.

Moderator: [unintelligible 00:05:43]

Curtis Sliwa: I'm very, very familiar with that in the outer boroughs, but also ever since this additional tack of congestion pricing, a complete disaster. Have you walked down the side streets? Have you walked down the main thoroughfares? Across the street from City Hall itself, nine small shops that were run by merchants for many years are now closed. They put this brown paper wrap on it that we used to wrap our books in public school with when you couldn't afford the high-priced wrap. It looks chintzy. It looks bad.

Anybody walking up and down is saying, "New York City is in decline." When I ask the merchants time and time again, "Why are you closing?" They say, "We don't have enough foot traffic. We're constantly being taken advantage of by the shoplifters who come in and out with an easy pass, and my margins are so small, I just can't do it." Then you go into the outer boroughs, it's a complete catastrophe. They employ 1 million people in the small businesses of New York City. 1 million New Yorkers get their gainful employment in small businesses, and they're closing up for a variety of reasons. The fees, the fines, the property tax.

Many times, the only reason you can stay in business is you actually own the building. They've raised it 20%. I'm going to cut that property tax. That's one thing that a mayor has control of, is the property tax, and it's outrageous. 20% in the outer boroughs, small property owners who have maybe two, three, four family homes. I think the corporate rate is about 11%. You say to yourself, and all it keeps doing is escalating, which is driving the fear, fright, hysteria out of our city and to other areas where you can still run a business and not have to worry about being taxed from the cradle to the grave, which is what we're doing now.

Brian: Now we've heard Sliwa, Mamdani, and Cuomo from the Crain's New York Business Candidates Forum earlier this month. With us now is Crain's politics reporter, Nick Garber. It's issue 27 in our 30 Issues in 30 Days election series, jobs and wages, as issues in the New York City mayoral race. Nick, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Nick: Thanks so much, Brian.

Brian: Listeners, call or text us if you own a business of any kind or, for that matter, if you're a worker of any kind. Who do you think is going to be best for your job and earnings prospects? Or, of course, with a question, as we try to clarify the differences between the three candidates to help you make up your mind if you're undecided. Call or text 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Do you have an opinion or question about the minimum wage proposals? $20 an hour from Cuomo by 2027, $30 an hour by 2030 from Mamdani.

Has your company fled the city, as Cuomo was emphasizing, around taxes and regulations, or is affordability more from private sector costs, like housing and child care, more the issue for you, as Mamdani was emphasizing, or congestion pricing, per Curtis Sliwa? We want your stories, most of all, if you're a stakeholder as a worker or owner, and questions welcome to 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Call or text. Nick, Cuomo was emphasizing businesses that have left the city. How much has it been happening?

Nick: I don't have numbers off the top of my head. I think there's certainly truth to the idea that the very considerable regulations that New York City imposes on small businesses can be a real headache and have, I'm sure, caused many to leave. I think many will talk about the affordability crisis as well, which is something that all of the candidates have honed in on, but probably none more so than Mamdani. I think the inability to find workers who can afford to live here is a genuine crisis for a lot of employers as well.

Brian: I realize you may not have this top of mind, but can you say, to the extent that Cuomo was speaking the truth, what kinds of businesses have been leaving?

Nick: Again, I don't know that I have industries off the top of my head, but I think there is truth to the claim that a minimum wage, for example, as I think we'll be talking about, I think what the literature says is that there is a certain limit where if you raise the minimum wage to high, businesses simply cannot afford that and will shut down or shed jobs as a result. I think there is something of a consensus, though, that limited increases to the minimum wage, as we've seen in New York and in a lot of other states in the last few years, that that does improve employees' quality of life without posing any real threat to jobs.

Brian: There are still reasons to be here. He talks about hangover New York arrogance, like sectors and companies that needed to be here in the past just don't need to be here anymore, and therefore they are leaving. One listener already texts, 'This everyone is leaving is such a historic repeat, it's comical. COVID-19, everyone claimed New York City was dead," and goes on from there as a critique of Cuomo's stance. Cuomo emphasized taxes and regulations. Mamdani, in his clip, emphasized private sector costs like housing and childcare. Can you tease apart the contributions of any of those factors to businesses that have left, or what, for you as a business politics reporter, you see businesses most lobbying for?

Nick: I think if you were to survey businesses about what they're most worried about, it often comes down to taxes. Unsurprisingly, that's true for both corporations and for real estate owners who are worried about the property tax, as Curtis Sliwa mentioned in that clip, is the one tax that mayors sort of control. They can't reform the system without Albany, but they can raise or lower the property tax. Sorry, your question, Brian, was?

Brian: Oh, just what businesses are asking for in your experience as a reporter in terms of more relief from private sector burdens, like childcare and housing costs, or more from taxes and regulation, like Cuomo is emphasizing. I think you just said they tend to lobby more for tax and regulatory relief. There are still industries coming, right? Like tech, where we keep hearing next to Silicon Valley, New York City is the biggest tech job center in the country, and only solidifying its place in that as time goes on. Were tech leaders in the room at the Crain's Business Forum, and did you hear anything from them?

Nick: Certainly some of them were, yes. I think tech is an interesting industry when it comes to this mayor's race because I think, very broadly speaking, they are more open to Zohran Mamdani than, for example, the real estate industry is, partly just because the tech industry skews younger, is more open to these kind of bold candidates who claim they're going to really innovate like crazy, whereas the real estate industry feels pretty directly threatened by some of Mamdani's policies, such as the rent freeze.

Brian: Here's part of an email I got from the business owner, a Harlem restaurant owner, about some of her concerns and hopes for the next mayor. She writes, "I sit on the boards of the New York City Hospitality Alliance and the Frederick Douglass Boulevard Alliance. I've heard countless times from larger operators than ourselves and even real estate developers that they will never open new businesses in New York City because of the excessive red tape and ongoing difficulties once they do."

To demonstrate the point, she writes, "In just eight weeks, I've been ticketed many times for a small outdoor area on our sidewalk. A senior health department official once told me that when you go to the health tribunal, you have to lie your face off. A fire inspector supervisor literally laughed when I described what one of his subordinates had insisted we do, saying they do have a lot of discretion. I've received opposite directors from inspectors from the same agency within a day of each other," and it goes on.

You get the idea from that small business owner. As I listened to the candidates in the forum, Nick, both Mamdani and Cuomo, and Sliwa, too, and we'll get Sliwa, were saying they were going to try to cut red tape. Do you have a sense of whether they're proposing to do that any differently from each other, or is that an area of unity between Cuomo and Mamdani that business owners, like the one I read from, might look forward to?

Nick: Yes, it is an area of unity in the sense that they have both called for cutting red tape. That said, I don't think that either of them has really gotten specific at all about what they would do. It's easy to say we should cut regulations, but those regulations are, of course, in place for a reason, especially if you're talking about health inspections for restaurants, for example. Yes, we pressed both of those candidates on which specific regulations would you cut, and I don't believe either of them has really said anything specifically.

Mamdani has really talked a lot about small business fines and fees. He had this kind of viral video where he talked about, he called it halalflation, referring to how costs have gone up for food you get at halal carts because those businesses need to pay so much fines and fees to the city for small procedural issues. I'm not aware of him specifying here's an unnecessary regulation that we should scrap.

Brian: Dan in Astoria, you're on WNYC. Hi, Dan.

Dan: Hi. Can you hear me?

Brian: Yes.

Dan: Can you hear me?

Brian: I can hear you.

Dan: Great, great, great. I just wanted to say a brief thing about the-- I don't feel like I'm hearing as much about the issues that are being held by restaurant owners when it comes to the prices for lease renewal. I'm in Astoria, and a fair amount of restaurants have been saying that-- We had this one restaurant called Tacuba, which was a very popular Mexican cafe over by Astoria Kaufman Studios, and it closed at the end of 10 years, even though it had been seemingly pretty packed on a regular basis.

One of the issues that people were saying was coming up a lot was that the lease renewal costs when you come to the end of a 10-year period that are being asked for are extremely difficult for the restaurant owners these days. I don't know whether that figures in to any of Mamdani's or anyone else's proposals when it comes to rent freezes, but lease renewal costs for restaurants that have been successful and then face these increased costs can be a very difficult barrier to continuing to stay in business, from what I can tell.

Brian: Nick, any thoughts about what Dan is raising?

Nick: Yes, I live in Astoria, too. I know that restaurant. I was sad to see it go. I'm not aware, again, of any specific plan by the candidates that really addresses this kind of vacant storefront business closing issue, aside from just what we were already talking about, about reducing fines and fees. I do recall there was an interview I read with Mamdani where he mentioned commercial rent stabilization, which is an idea that's been thrown around over the years. Having a form of rent stabilization already exists for apartments, but for commercial spaces, to my knowledge, he hasn't advanced any concrete plan around that. I think it's been kicked around in the council before, but never really gotten off the ground.

Brian: Thank you for your call, Dan. On the minimum wage, here are two competing texts. One listener writes, "I always thought that raising the minimum wage would lead to higher inflation, and eventually you will not be any better off than you are now." Another listener writes, "$30 minimum wage is not much in New York City. The cost of living in Chicago is about 50% lower than in New York City." I don't know if we can verify that stat, but that's what a listener writes.

"A $30 minimum wage here is equivalent to making $15 an hour in Chicago." Whether that 50% is exactly accurate, obviously, the cost of living in New York City, Nick, is higher than most places, if not any place in the country. Can you give me anything on how Cuomo makes his case for a $20 minimum wage, and how Mamdani makes his case for a $30 minimum wage?

Nick: Yes. The basic rationale for both, I think, it comes from a similar concept that employees should be paid more, and that businesses can afford it to some degree. There's an interesting gap where, obviously, they're calling for two very different wage floors, Mamdani's being $10 higher. Another difference between them is that Mamdani, his campaign has suggested that they think they would have the authority to raise the city's minimum wage just by city council action by regular legislation.

I think there's some ambiguity about whether New York City does have that authority. In the past, it's only ever been set by the state, but there is some belief that the city could do it on its own. Cuomo's, on the other hand, I think, would be reliant on the state, like we all would assume.

Brian: A thought about Curtis Sliwa, who I think was the least specific of any of the three who presented, as I listened to the speeches at your candidate's forum, tell me if you disagree. He said that he's not an expert on a lot of these things, but he's going to appoint really good people, and he'll be a good manager as mayor. Your audience at the forum was primarily business leaders, right? That's a particular group of people, not to say it's representative of all the voters. I'm curious what their reaction was to Sliwa's main concern, at least as it jumped out to me and in the clip that we played, that congestion pricing is killing businesses.

Nick: I didn't do a survey about the responses to that issue, but if I did, I think there would not have been a whole lot of agreement there. To my knowledge, I don't think there's any evidence so far that congestion pricing has had a negative effect on business. In fact, industries that people were worried about, like Broadway, have continued to do pretty well since the toll went in place. Overall, congestion pricing is a program that has pretty strong support among big businesses because traffic is a killer. It kills billions of dollars in productivity every year. I don't know if Sliwa was totally aware of his audience when he was railing against congestion pricing there, but he's consistent on that issue.

Brian: Nick Garber, politics reporter for Crain's New York Business. We played clips from Mamdani, Cuomo, and Sliwa from the Crain's Candidates Forum earlier this month, and a couple of clips of Cuomo and Mamdani, respectively, from May on their minimum wage proposals. That's our 30 Issues in 30 Days election series segment for today, issue number 27, jobs and wages as issues in the New York City mayoral race. Nick, thanks a lot for joining us.

Nick: Thanks so much, Brian.

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