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minimum wage
Mamdani Won the Primary; Now What?
Usually, such a great primary win in overwhelmingly Democratic New York City guarantees a smooth path to a November win against a Republican opponent. Not this time.
Jun 28, 2025
People are asking about my reaction to Zohran Mamdani’s spectacular and decisive upset in the Democratic primary victory for Mayor of New York over ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani’s victory was so overwhelming that Cuomo conceded generously, saying that Mamdani ran a “…highly impactful campaign…” “He deserved it. He won.”
Here are my observations:
1. Usually, such a great primary win in overwhelmingly Democratic New York City guarantees a smooth path to a November win against a Republican opponent. Not this time. No sooner than Wednesday, a clutch of wealthy Wall Streeters, real estate giants, and supporters of the genocidal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were meeting to plan the strategy to defeat this 33-year-old three-term state assemblyman in the November general election.
Mamdani’s agenda is no more socialist than that of FDR.
2. Mamdani won with one repeated pledge—“affordability” to live in the nation’s largest city. That meant 1) freezing rent on 1 million rent-stabilized apartments; 2) free bus fares; 3) free, universal childcare; 4) “city-owned grocery stores,” 5) a higher minimum wage and higher taxes on the super-rich and higher corporate taxes.
Mamdani has other options at the ready that he did not even mention. Such as ending costly property tax abatements for large commercial buildings and ending the daily rebate of a tiny sales tax of $15 to 20 billion a year on stock transactions, transferred by Wall Street brokers to NY state. Those revenues can be shared with New York City. (See: greedvsneed.org). To expand affordable housing, Mamdani can tap into the National Cooperative Bank in Washington, D.C., which has long provided loans to construct cooperative housing projects—that is, housing owned by its residents.
3. With 993,546 votes counted, Mamdani beat Cuomo by 71,000 votes. The primary voter turnout was almost 1 million voters. In the general election turnout will be many more of the 7 million eligible voters. Therein lies a possible vulnerability in November. Mamdani got his vote out with 50,000 volunteers, including a surge of younger voters. In November, millions more voters may turn out who were not excited enough this month to turn out for this young “Democratic Socialist.” These additional voters might be a much tougher sell.
4. Mamdani’s agenda is no more socialist than that of FDR. In conservative New Hampshire, all liquor stores are owned by the state. In the red state of North Dakota, there is a thriving, prominent State Bank. The Tennessee Valley Authority and scores of city electric companies are owned by public authorities. And the list goes on. Reality will not stop the burgeoning campaign of slander, fakery, and bigotry underway against this charismatic American Muslim. Fascist Greedhound Donald Trump called him a “communist lunatic.”
Many millions of dollars are ready to redefine Mamdani falsely. He is an excellent and credible responder. That skill and veracity apply to his stand against Netanyahu’s mass murdering in Gaza and his position on equal rights for everyone. AIPAC will find him a more difficult candidate to defeat than Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.). He needs to forcefully counter AIPAC, a domestic agent of Netanyahu.
5. For his part, Mamdani has not yet adopted many of the progressive agenda planks ready for use in all campaigns, including local ones, along with new ways to get out the vote. Unlike most Democrats, Mamdani does not contract out his campaign to corporate-conflicted political consultants who have sabotaged Democratic voters for years. He speaks and acts for himself, from his mind and heart. He can make use of our report “Crushing the GOP, 2022” (still very relevant), featuring the political wisdom of 24 civic leaders for waging successful progressive campaigns (See: winningamerica.net). He can use the geographically specific database showing corporate subsidies by local governments (See goodjobsfirst.org). He can make use of the corporate crime trackers to make his case for cracking down on corporate crooks eating away at New York City’s consumer dollars and savings.
6. Finally, Mamdani’s access to the mass media should encourage him to embrace other progressive democratic primary challengers facing the decaying Democratic Party’s establishment that never learns from their losses to the worst, most corrupt, cruel GOP in the party’s history.
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No Tax on Tips Is a Deceptive Ploy; Congress Should Raise the Minimum Wage Instead
Over the next 10 years, the Raise the Wage Act would have a total benefit to affected workers of $700 billion, compared with about $39 billion from “no tax on tips” in the House bill.
Jun 22, 2025
At President Donald Trump’s direction, Congress is considering proposals to exempt tips from taxable income.
After Trump floated this gimmick on the campaign trail, Republican and Democratic elected officials alike have embraced the idea. The House Republican budget bill (H.R. 1) includes a “no tax on tips” provision that gives the illusion of helping lower-income workers—while the rest of the legislation hands huge giveaways to the rich at the expense of the working class. The Senate recently passed a standalone version of no tax on tips that similarly provides the false impression of aiding workers while giving employers excuses to incentivize tipped work and keep base wages low.
In stark contrast to “no tax on tips,” which excludes workers with the lowest incomes, the largest benefits of the Raise the Wage Act would go to the lowest-paid workers.
If the Trump administration and its allies in Congress genuinely wanted to help tipped and lower-paid workers, there are far better options they could pursue, like raising the federal minimum wage. To illustrate this, we compare the estimated impact of no tax on tips with the Raise the Wage Act of 2025, a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $17 an hour by 2030 and gradually phase out the tipped minimum wage. Here is an overview of how the two plans compare.
How Many Workers Would Be Affected? How Long Would Benefits Last?
No tax on tips: Between 2.5 and 5.2 million tipped workers would receive an income tax deduction over the next four years, but benefits would end after 2028.
The Raise the Wage Act: Nearly 23 million workers, including 2.8 million tipped workers, would earn higher wages with no end date—meaning affected workers would continue to benefit indefinitely.
How Much Would These Workers Benefit Annually? How Would Benefits Differ Based on Income?
No tax on tips: Eligible tipped workers would receive an average annual tax cut of $1,700 for the four years it would be in effect. However, the benefits would heavily skew toward higher-income tipped workers. Among all tipped workers, the top 20% would receive an average tax cut of $5,768 while those in the bottom 20% would only get $74 on average. The average for the bottom quintile is small in large part because two-thirds of those workers have incomes so low that they do not pay federal income taxes and thus will not see any tax benefit.
The Raise the Wage Act: Affected workers who work year-round would receive an average wage increase of $3,200 per year. After taxes, the net pay increase would be marginally smaller but still significantly larger than what a worker would receive on average with a tax deduction on tips. In stark contrast to “no tax on tips,” which excludes workers with the lowest incomes, the largest benefits of the Raise the Wage Act would go to the lowest-paid workers.
Who Pays for These Benefits?
No tax on tips: The public writ large would pay. House Republican lawmakers are already proposing massive cuts to social programs, such as Medicaid and food stamps that benefit millions of people (including tipped workers), to offset foregone revenue from no tax on tips and large tax cuts for the rich. The Republican plan would also dramatically increase the federal debt, which could substantially raise borrowing costs for households and businesses in the future.
The Raise the Wage Act: Employers of low-wage workers would pay for these wage increases, absorbing the higher labor costs over time through a variety of channels. Importantly, the Raise the Wage Act not only increases the federal minimum wage but also phases out the tipped minimum wage, a system that has provided employers of tipped workers an enormous—and highly problematic—public subsidy for decades.
While no tax on tips would benefit only the small share of workers who receive tips as a portion of their compensation, the Raise the Wage Act would benefit all low-wage workers in the U.S., including 4.2 million people with incomes below the poverty line. Over the next 10 years, the Raise the Wage Act would have a total benefit to affected workers of $700 billion, compared with about $39 billion from “no tax on tips” in the House bill (see Figure A).
As we at Economic Policy Institute and others have noted, no tax on tips is problematic for a variety of other reasons, aside from its paltry and poorly targeted benefits. The measure that passed in the House caps eligibility to workers in certain tipped occupations earning less than $160,000 in annual income. This will mitigate tax avoidance by the highest earners, but it does not fix other problems, including the fact that ending taxation of tips would likely expand employer use of tipped work—a system already rife with discrimination and worker abuse. No tax on tips would also undercut efforts to raise worker compensation while depleting tax revenue for public services. By subsidizing the use of tipping in the federal tax code, no tax on tips would further cement a system that lets employers off the hook from paying their workers a fair wage—in this case, forcing taxpayers to foot the bill. In contrast, the Raise the Wage Act gives workers a durable wage increase paid for by those who should be paying—their employers.
Beyond raising the minimum wage, there are several other effective and more equitable policies to support working families—including expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, providing workers with paid sick leave and paid family and medical leave, and supporting workers’ rights to form and join unions. But Trump and congressional Republicans, while claiming to support workers, have not pursued these policies. Instead, they have relentlessly attacked workers, and pushed an enormous tax cut for the wealthy—paid for by cutting essential social programs for low-income people and children and adding trillions to the public debt. As many as 16 million people would lose their health insurance under the House budget bill.
The Raise the Wage Act is by no means an outlier or a radical exercise in messaging—it’s cosponsored by majorities of House and Senate Democrats. If even a few Republicans were willing to support it, it could easily have the votes to pass. No tax on tips, on the other hand, remains a deceptive ploy that would provide few benefits to workers and fail to offset the harm the Republican budget bill would impose on millions of workers and families.
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A Year After Grants Pass, Criminalizing Homelessness Still Doesn’t Work
Homelessness is solvable in our lifetime if our country commits to ensuring that every person has a safe, affordable, dignified, and permanent place to call home.
Jun 09, 2025
In the largest eviction of a homeless encampment in recent history, around 100 unhoused people were recently forced to vacate Oregon’s Deschutes National Forest—or else face a $5,000 fine and up to one year in jail.
The forest was the last hope for the encampment’s residents, many of whom were living in broken down RVs and cars. Shelters in nearby Bend—where the average home price is nearly $800,000—are at capacity, and rent is increasingly unaffordable.
“There’s nowhere for us to go,” Chris Dake, an encampment resident who worked as a cashier and injured his knee, told The New York Times.
Today, a person who works full-time and earns a minimum wage cannot afford a safe place to live almost anywhere in the country.
This sentiment was echoed by unhoused people in Grants Pass, 200 miles south, where a similar fight unfolded. A year ago this June, in Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court’s billionaire-backed justices ruled that local governments can criminalize people for sleeping outside, even if there’s no available shelter.
Nearly one year later, homelessness—and its criminalization—has only worsened.
Today, a person who works full-time and earns a minimum wage cannot afford a safe place to live almost anywhere in the country. The federal minimum wage has remained stagnant at $7.25 since 2009, and rent is now unaffordable for half of all tenants.
As a result, there are now over 770,000 people without housing nationwide—a record high. Many more are just one emergency away from joining them.
The Supreme Court’s abhorrent decision opened the door for cities to harass people for the “crime” of not having a place to live. Fines and arrests, in turn, make it more difficult to get out of poverty and into stable housing.
Since Grants Pass, around 150 cities have passed or strengthened “anti-camping” laws that fine, ticket, or jail people for living outdoors—including over two dozen cities and counties in California alone. A Florida law mandates that counties and municipalities ban sleeping or camping on public property. Due to a related crackdown, almost half of arrests in Miami Beach last year were of unhoused people.
Emboldened by Grants Pass, localities have ramped up the forced clearing of encampments—a practice known as “sweeps.”
While officials justify them for safety and sanitation reasons, sweeps harm people by severing their ties to case workers, medical care, and other vital services. In many cases, basic survival items are confiscated by authorities. Alongside being deadly, research confirms that sweeps are also costly and unproductive.
Punitive fines, arrests, and sweeps don’t address the root of the problem: the lack of permanent, affordable, and adequate housing.
President Donald Trump is only doubling down on failed housing policies. He ordered over 30 encampments in D.C. to be cleared based on a March executive order. And his budget request for 2026 would slash federal rental assistance for over 10 million Americans by a devastating 43% (all to fund tax breaks for billionaires and corporations.)
For too long, our government policies have allowed a basic necessity for survival to become commodified and controlled by corporations and billionaire investors. We must challenge this if we ever want to resolve homelessness.
Housing is a fundamental human right under international law that the U.S. must recognize. Homelessness is solvable in our lifetime if our country commits to ensuring that every person has a safe, affordable, dignified, and permanent place to call home.
As housing experts have long noted, governments should invest in proven and humane solutions like Housing First, which provides permanent housing without preconditions, coupled with supportive services.
Despite the obstacles, communities continue to fight back—including in Grants Pass, where disability rights advocates are challenging the city’s public camping restrictions. Others are forming tenant and homeless unions in their cities, organizing rent strikes, and pushing for publicly funded housing (or “social housing”) that’s permanently affordable and protected from the private market.
The Grants Pass decision may have opened the door to new cruelties, but local governments still have a choice to do what’s right. Now, more than ever, we must demand real housing solutions.
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