Tipsheet

NYC Leaders Just Voted to Give Themselves a Massive Pay Raise

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  July 08, 2026 11:30 AM

It must be nice to be a socialist in charge of America's biggest city. Not only can you make it impossible for landlords to earn a living renting out properties, you can simply legislate a pay raise for yourself using other people's money. That's what's happening in New York City, where the advisory committee appointed by Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani just recommended an 18.2 percent pay increase for city leaders.

It's good to be the king.

Here's more:

Shameless city lawmakers are pushing to give themselves eye-watering 18.2% raises — in a scheme that will also give them automatic pay hikes of at least 2% every year in the future.

City Council Member Nantasha Williams (D-27) introduced a bill that would inflate her and her colleagues’ salaries from $148,500 to $175,500 backdated to January, while also ballooning pay for the mayor, the City Council speaker and other elected positions.

The bill comes days after the lawmakers signed off on a record-breaking $126 billion city budget and includes salaries even higher than a 16% raise the council tried to sneak by in a similar bank-account boosting measure at the end of their session last year.

And the bill also ensures taxpayers will be on the hook to pay elected officials more every year — with no requirement for public debate or a City Council vote.

For now, Mamdani and Council Speaker Julie Menin say they wouldn't take the raises themselves. But lying is what politicians do best, so we'd keep a close eye on that.

The elites always have money, privilege, and freedom. The rest of us do not.

Simply incredible.

And when your building falls into disrepair because your landlord can't make rent, the city will take over and you'll live in a slum.

Always, invariably.

They're (D)ifferent. The entire purpose of freezing rents is to justify government seizure of private property down the road.

Under communism and socialism, there are two classes: the political elites and their wealthy allies, and the poor. Mamdani and his friends are in the former; the rest of us are in the latter.