New York’s first-ever deputy mayor for economic justice says her job is to grow the economy by delivering on Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s agenda for helping those who need it the most.
In: Affordable housing, free childcare and city-owned grocery stores.
Out: Billions in tax breaks and incentives to big developers and employers, unless they improve the lives of working class New Yorkers.
In a sharp U-turn from policies pursued by mayors for decades, Deputy Mayor Julie Su says priorities that include building 200,000 new apartments and establishing universal child care will create a healthy economy.
Gone, she says, are the days when city taxpayers helped fund new office developments that sometimes showed little public benefit.
“Building housing at the scale that we’re talking about is a job creator and an economic engine,” Su said in a wide ranging interview with THE CITY. “Childcare is both an economic generator because when you grow that industry, there’s jobs in that industry and you allow other people to join the workplace.”
The turnabout is clear from the Mamdani administration’s new approach to tax breaks, favoring them only after tougher scrutiny and with provisions for union labor. Su said taxpayer-funded incentives would require “benefits for working class communities,” though she wasn’t more specific on what that might mean.
Mamdani’s agenda is hemmed in by a $5.4 billion budget deficit and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s refusal to go along with his demands for higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations and inflation in New York City outpaces the national rate.
Speaking at City Hall, Su — a former top official in President Joe Biden’s Labor Department — emphasized the need for equity in economic growth.
“This is a little bit of a crude metaphor, but I think about it as we want everybody to have a real slice of the pie,” she said. “We also want to grow the overall pie, and we want to make sure that the pie is filled with good ingredients that make people healthy and happy.”
That includes possibly implementing the mayor’s campaign pledge to nearly double the minimum wage from its current $17 an hour to $30 over the next several years.
Not on the agenda so far are the kind of direct city investments in industries and neighborhoods that have spurred growth in the past.
In the early 2000s, the Bloomberg administration financed the expansion of the 7 subway to the far west side, provided tax breaks to jumpstart the office and luxury residential district at Hudson Yards, and overhauled the management of the Brooklyn Navy Yard to create a home for light manufacturing.
Mayor Bill de Blasio offered $5 billion in tax breaks in a failed effort to bring Amazon’s second headquarters to the city and pursued growth outside Manhattan with investments and tax incentives.
Eric Adams pursued projects like turning the Brooklyn Army Terminal into a center for climate innovation companies, provided millions of dollars to help expand the city’s film studios and relentlessly worked to lure tech companies and universities.
“We believe that all tools should be on the table to attract and retain high-quality, family-supporting jobs in New York City,” Su said. “In the past, tax incentives have enriched those at the top of the economic ladder while depriving the city of critical revenue and often failing to yield tangible benefits for working New Yorkers.”
Of a planned Hudson Yards expansion that relied on another $2 billion in public money, a Mamdani spokesperson said: “We are not actively engaged in negotiations to move this project forward at this time.”
A key indication of Mamdani’s economic policy may be who is named to run the Economic Development Corp., a semi-independent agency that has historically been the spearhead for development efforts.
Shortly after being appointed, Su wrote a memo that called for the agency to focus on “the quality (not just number) of jobs created for the people who call N.Y.C. home,” The New York Times reported, raising alarm among business leaders. Su declined to say where she stood on filling the job but added that EDC is “firing on all cylinders.”
Business leaders are closely watching who will be appointed.
“Folks are still waiting to see who the administration’s point person on business recruitment and job retention will be,” said James Whelan, the president of the Real Estate Board of New York who worked on economic development in the Bloomberg administration. “If you want a progressive city, you need a prosperous city. Someone needs to pay for the progressivity.”
Ruffled Hedge Fund Feathers
Su, who served as California’s labor secretary before joining the Biden administration, moved to address a growing storm over the mayor’s calling out of billionaire hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin by filming a social media post touting the pied-a-terre tax proposal in front of Griffin’s $238 million Manhattan penthouse.
Griffin’s fund, Citadel, moved hundreds of people to New York from Chicago and is in the process of building a new headquarters on Park Avenue — but a letter to employees last Thursday said it might not move ahead with the plan.
“We are about to commence the redevelopment of 350 Park Avenue, creating 6,000 highly paid construction jobs and supporting the creation of more than 15,000 permanent jobs in mid-town New York,” wrote chief operating officer Gerald Beeson. “The project — if we move forward — will entail more than $6 billion dollars of spending.”
Gov. Hochul announced Tuesday she would meet with Griffin amid continuing media focus on the issue. Su tried to calm the waters in her interview with THE CITY.
“We value Wall Street. We value companies that have made New York City their home,” she said. “We value the job creators who are really fundamental to creating the kind of growth that is required for shared prosperity. And we absolutely welcome the opportunities to work with them to deliver on an economy that works for everybody.”
Su declined to say whether the Administration would support a bill in the City Council to raise the minimum wage, noting uncertainty over whether the city had the power to do that without approval from state legislators.
But she strongly supported the efforts to end what the administration sees as corporate gouging of consumers — especially online. Mamdani has required companies offering online subscriptions provide an easy unsubscribe option, and moved to force hotels to disclose fees more clearly.
Some of Mamdani’s appointees worked for Lina Khan, Biden’s Federal Trade Commission chair, who pursued aggressive regulation of tech companies. Khan has emerged as an important adviser to the mayor, and with the Trump Administration undoing much of their work in Washington, they are attempting to reestablish regulations on the city level.
“If you as a company operate in New York City and your practices, including subscription traps, impact New Yorkers, then we are charged with protecting New York workers and consumers,” Su said. “And we are going to exercise our full authority on that front.”
The mayor has taken two steps to aid small businesses in the city. In January he ordered all city agencies to review regulations affecting small firms that could be reduced or eliminated. He also appointed small business development executive Delia Awusi as his “Mom-and-Pop Czar” to help the smallest of those companies.
Mamdani is far from the first mayor to promise changes.
“I’ve been around for four mayors and all of them promised to reduce fines and fees and didn’t,” said a skeptical Laura Rothrock, president of the Long Island City Partnership.
Su says that the agencies have submitted their list of regulations that could be revised and it is under review. She said she understands the failures that have preceded her but added that this administration will be different — and not just by helping small businesses.
“I have been getting advice that we should tinker at the margins rather than set broad goals that people are going to point at, that you failed at,” she said. “That is not who we are. That is not who this mayor is. We have to prove that government can deliver.”
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