GOODER AND HARDER, FUN CITY: New York City Isn’t Prepared for a Recession.
In mid-February, just seven weeks into office, New York City Mayor Zohran K. Mamdani delivered somber news to state legislators: the city faces a $5.4 billion deficit for the fiscal year beginning July 1, the result, he said, “of budgetary failures of the past.” Even after spending cuts, he argued, the state should raise income and business taxes and transfer the proceeds to the city immediately—“the most direct route out of this budget crisis.” Thankfully for New Yorkers, the mayor was mostly bluffing: this year’s budget gap is manageable, and the city faces no acute emergency.
But Mamdani’s push unwittingly raised a graver point: If things are this strained when the global, state, and local economies are nominally doing all right, and when city tax revenues are therefore rising, what would happen if the city entered a recession—historically, a matter not of if but when?
No modern New York mayor, save for Mamdani’s one-term predecessor, Eric L. Adams, has avoided a downturn, and the economy is overdue for one. Aside from the sharp unemployment spike caused by the Covid-19 lockdowns in the spring of 2020, the U.S. economy has not experienced a normal cyclical recession since 2008, nearly two decades ago. And no modern mayor is less equipped than Mamdani to grapple with an economic and fiscal crisis.
After attacking him during the mayoral race, Mamdani has wisely attempted to buddy-up to Trump. Will that be enough to prevent the “TRUMP TO CITY: DROP DEAD” headlines that are sure to follow from New York’s tabloids?
