Mayor Zohran Mamdani spent parts of Friday and Sunday campaigning alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul for her reelection. On Monday, two leading figures in his administration argued that tackling the cost-of-living crisis requires more than one-time payments, emphasizing longer-term efforts to bring down costs — just as the governor’s $1 billion energy rebate checks are landing in millions of New Yorkers’ mailboxes.
Mamdani’s chief of staff, Elle Bisgaard-Church, said at a New York City Policy Forum event on affordability that one-time handouts disempower people. Lina Khan, the former Federal Trade Commission chair who now chairs the city’s Economic Development Corporation board, also played down the role of one-time checks, arguing that Mamdani’s agenda is focused on tackling the forces driving up costs in the first place.
