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A $30 minimum wage in NYC? It's another proposal on the line for city voters.
By
Arun Venugopal
Published Oct 14, 2025
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Alexandre Tziripouloff/Getty Images
By
Arun Venugopal
Published Oct 14, 2025
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Paychecks could be on the line in New York City's upcoming mayoral election.
Democratic nominee and front-runner Zohran Mamdani has proposed nearly doubling the local minimum wage to $30 by 2030, which could mean fatter paychecks for thousands, but also, according to some economists, possibly hasten the demise of some jobs altogether.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat running as an independent, has his own plan for boosting the local minimum wage. He would raise it to $20 by 2027, up from the current $16.50, which his campaign website said would benefit 800,000 New Yorkers. The federal minimum wage has remained at $7.25 since 2009.
Like Cuomo, Republican challenger Curtis Sliwa has said he would slash red tape for businesses and make the city more attractive to employers.
Jerry Skurnik, a longtime political analyst who began his career with a job in the administration of Mayor John Lindsay, said jobs and paychecks won’t turn an election where crime, housing and affordability have gained so much attention.
“I can't remember a mayoral campaign [in which] creating jobs was a big issue,” said Skurnik, a senior consultant at Engage Voters U.S.
Nonetheless, policy experts say boosting the minimum wage could have far-reaching implications, including reducing income inequality and making the city more affordable, but could also hurt some employers and speed up automation.
Staunch Mamdani supporters like Youssef Mubarez, owner of Mokafé, a chain with eight coffee shops across the city and New Jersey, are among those expressing concerns about a steep minimum wage hike.
“We want our employees to have a living wage,” Mubarez said. “These days, living on $800, $1,000 a week barely gets you by.”
He added, however, for many small business owners, “a minimum wage of $30 might be too steep and unaffordable, especially with the rising costs in goods these days.”
A minimum wage increase would require the state Legislature's approval.
On the employment front, Mamdani has also vowed to strengthen regulations protecting the city’s estimated 80,000 delivery workers. His campaign's website states they are “fundamental to keeping this city running, supplying groceries, meals, and medications 24/7.”
Mamdani, a democratic socialist, said in a statement that he’d work to “ensure we attract and retain the world-class talent our city’s businesses depend on.”
“That means ensuring New Yorkers have a high quality of life, top-tier public safety, the ability to pay rent and afford child care,” Mamdani said. “I plan to invest in ambitious public services which will help working families, but also employers to be able to retain talent, grow and create more jobs.”
Sliwa said if elected he would “cut taxes across the board” and make city agencies “partners in job creation instead of roadblocks.”
“We’ll keep young people here with a five-year city income-tax abatement for those entering the workforce, and focus on safety, stability, and growth, because real jobs come from a pro-business agenda, not political gimmicks,” Sliwa said in a statement.
Cuomo said he’d make the city more business-friendly.
“ I want to go through all the regulations and cut the red tape that is driving businesses, especially small businesses, crazy,” the former governor said at an Aug. 14 press conference. In an apparent swipe at Mamdani, Cuomo stated, “ this anticapitalist rhetoric is very destructive and dangerous.”
But when a reporter pressed Cuomo for specific regulations he’d trim, he demurred.
“ I don't want to pick on any one now because every regulation you pick there's going to be a counter voice that supports that,” Cuomo said.
Debating a $30 minimum wage
James Parrott, who has served as the city’s chief economist for economic development, praised Mamdani’s proposed $30 minimum wage.
Parrott, a senior fellow and senior adviser at the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, said that in recent years wages for the wealthiest New Yorkers had soared but stagnated for the lowest-income New Yorkers. Among the nation’s 10 largest cities, New York City was the only one to have a statistically significant decline in real median income between 2019 and 2024, Parrott wrote in an October report.
By contrast, Parrott said, low-wage earners in New York City prospered in the prior decade, when the state minimum wage nearly doubled to $15.
“It was like the golden age of equitable economic growth in New York City,” Parrott said.
He added: “Real incomes for people in the bottom half of the income distribution rose more than they have at any time since the 1960s.”
Some other economists were less certain about the benefits of a $30 minimum wage.
Lauren Melodia, the director of economic and fiscal policy at the Center for New York City Affairs, said more research was needed to determine its impact, “ because we do live in a city that is full of small businesses.”
“If you raise the minimum wage but then you lose X number of jobs as a result, the question becomes, ‘Was it worth it?’” Melodia said.
And John Ketcham, a legal policy fellow and director of cities at the conservative Manhattan Institute, was more critical.
“Raising the minimum wage to $30 by 2030 will encourage more businesses to automate,” Ketcham said. “And that's particularly a possibility given that AI is available at scale for cheap to practically everybody.”
Ketcham said self-checkout lines “have become ubiquitous,” particularly at fast-food establishments like McDonald’s, “and doubling the minimum wage is only going to mean that businesses prefer machines over people.”
“ What the mayor can do to encourage job growth for good, solid middle-class jobs is to build a lot more housing,” Ketcham said, adding that any new housing should come from the private sector, not the public.
Mubarez, the owner of Mokafé, said his misgivings about a potential minimum wage hike haven’t made him less enthusiastic about Mamdani, with whom he expects there would be room for negotiation.
“There’ll be give and take,” he said.
Tagged
Politics
Race And Justice Unit
economy
new york city
Arun Venugopal
Arun Venugopal is a senior reporter for the WNYC and Gothamist Race & Justice Unit who focuses on issues of race and bias in our region. His reporting also tackles the topics of immigration, faith, and inequality. Arun serves as the regular fill-in host of the station's "U.S. of Anxiety" program. Arun was the creator and host of Micropolis, a series about race and identity. He is a contributor to NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He has appeared on PBS Newshour, On the Media and Studio 360, and has been published in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal and Salon. He also frequently serves as an emcee and moderator of panel discussions on race, religion, and identity issues and has been a guest host of NPR's "Fresh Air." He lives with his family in Queens.
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