NYC Mayor Mamdani accused of ‘moving the goalposts’ on poverty by commentator
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New York City’s Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “moving goals” on poverty in the nation’s largest city with his newly unveiled racial equality plan to provide justification for a major increase in government intervention, a city policy analyst has warned.
Mamdani released his “Preliminary Citywide Racial Equity Plan” earlier this month, which he immediately got pushback from the Department of Justice of President Donald Trump and Santiago Vidal Calvo of the Manhattan Institute, who told Fox News Digital that when the report uses the “real cost of living” to claim 62% of New Yorkers cannot make ends meet in the city, it is a strategy to declare a problem that requires more government.
“What he’s actually doing is moving the goalposts,” explained Vidal Calvo. “They’re actually saying what the federal government qualifies as someone below the poverty line — like $34,000, $35,000 a year, those would be the same numbers for 2024, but it’s very close to that — we’re actually moving the goals so that anyone under $160,000 with children can’t live in New York City.”
“Those numbers, actually, if you live in New York City, they don’t sound crazy, they don’t sound, you know, high. But in fact, for any one person in America, $160,000 is, you know, a breadwinner. It’s actually enough money to raise a family and have children and have good health. So when we move those problems, without directing these problems, in fact, we look at what are the pillars of recog. disease, what are the real problems that make the City of New York called, and we set the problem and throw a dart at the board and say, ‘This is it.’
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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at a press conference at La Marqueta in East Harlem on April 14, 2026, explaining the city’s retail plans aimed at reducing food prices. (New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a press conference announcing plans for a city-owned grocery store in East Harlem.)
The “truth” of this situation, Vidal Calvo says, “you don’t make the area affordable by making people pay more” but instead the city needs to “ask the right questions” about policies that drive wage growth and new housing development.
“So the problem here is that we are focusing on the problem that the socialists in City Hall want to believe – that if you give people more money, they can get more things,” said Vidal Calvo. “But you’re not asking what the tradeoff is for giving people more money. And just by saying that the ‘True Cost of Living’ in New York City is $160,000 a year for people with kids, that doesn’t necessarily mean that people, first, can afford that lifestyle or, second, can afford those salaries.”
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The high cost of living in New York City is driven by several factors, including housing, which is where Vidal Calvo says City Hall needs to “encourage more housing in the city.”
“That’s how you lower the price of houses,” he said. “It’s not about frozen rents, it’s not about stabilizing markets—usually leading to higher and higher prices.”
Rather than a major administrative effort to expand government with more departments and workers, Vidal Calvo explained that the city should instead change zoning to build faster, cut permit delays, make it easier to establish childcare facilities, reduce administrative barriers, and create opportunities for employers to hire more people and hire talent across the United States.
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Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaking during the event. (Getty Images)
Mamdani’s plan for racial equality has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers for their conclusions about race and efforts to support the government’s efforts to address racial inequality, including DOJ Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon who said he would “review” the matter.
Vidal Calvo, who recently published a New York Post op-ed about Mamdani’s plan, told Fox News Digital, “I feel like this is another way to put DEI on the table without calling DEI.”
“And now we have found that in studies, in many government programs, in many existing structures of social structures, the DEI does not work, and unfortunately, this may be another case where it fails, and not because of the objective reason of trying to make everyone live, because I feel that that is a good goal that everyone can have, “But Vidal Calvo explained about the solution. It is about how they really try to go this way. You cannot argue that because someone is a different race, it is more difficult making a living in New York City. It doesn’t work like that.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Mamdani’s office for comment.
