May 2026 — A collaboration between Protect Borrowers and The Century Foundation
An Agenda to Lower Costs, Hold Corporations Accountable, and Make Government Work for New Yorkers.
Foreword by Julie Margetta Morgan and Mike Pierce
The stakes for New Yorkers have never been higher. Across the city, the cost of living has skyrocketed—rent keeps rising, healthcare costs are soaring, and the price of everyday basics, from gas to groceries, continues to climb. Low- and middle-income New Yorkers are increasingly leaving the city over the high cost of living. Mayor Zohran Mamdani channeled these frustrations on the campaign trail, telling a story about how the city government could deliver a more affordable life for all New Yorkers.
Since taking office, Mayor Mamdani has taken swift action and shown the government’s ability to deliver simple yet powerful change. Expanded preschool for all New Yorkers—an idea once dismissed by critics as impossible—will soon become reality. A new pied-à-terre tax will bring in hundreds of millions of dollars. A snow shovel brigade composed of ordinary New Yorkers were paid a decent wage to clear the streets and get the city moving after a blizzard earlier this year. From cracking down on businesses exploiting their workers to stopping giant corporations from bombarding New Yorkers with junk fees, the Administration has pursued an aggressive enforcement agenda to block private actors from ripping off residents.
Given the scale of the city’s affordability crisis, we are going to need an aggressive, all-of-government effort to bring down costs and give average New Yorkers a bigger slice of the pie. New York City can ease the burden on families by directly lowering costs, like junk fees or surcharges, holding corporations accountable for predatory practices that drive up prices, and making city government work in ways that take expenses off residents’ shoulders. That’s why Protect Borrowers and The Century Foundation are launching Affordable NYC Now, a project to develop implementation-ready ideas to make life better for the families and small businesses that call the city home. Our first report, Lowering Costs, showcases the first wave of these proposals, developed by leading experts and advocates.
Together, these ideas advance a vision for how the Mamdani Administration can continue to help working families and advance economic justice. Critically, these items don’t require bigger budgets or new legal authority, so they can be implemented quickly. These are actions the Administration can take now, with existing tools, to deliver immediate relief. In our view, these policies not only bring much-needed relief, but they also help deliver on the Administration’s promise to families and build a foundation for changes that require a strong political coalition. They are part of a broader effort to recapture what makes New York an envy of the world, and build the type of government and economy that New Yorkers deserve.
The Data: New York’s Debt Crisis, Visualized
To understand how the high cost of living impacts New Yorkers and how different policies affect cost burdens, Affordable NYC Now is using zip-code level data to track household debt in the city. Today, we’re releasing data that shows the explosion of household debt across New York City in just the last few years1. The maps below tell a story that is all too familiar for New York families—but often overlooked by policymakers.
Between 2018 and 2025, average monthly debt payments soared in working-class, outer-borough neighborhoods. While debt payments increased only moderately across Manhattan, individuals in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island on average went from spending roughly $282 per month repaying debt to $344—and in some neighborhoods, surpassing $500 or more. That’s not because New Yorkers suddenly became financially irresponsible. It’s because the cost of basic necessities skyrocketed while wages barely budged—and credit cards became the only way to keep the lights on.
Figure 1
Auto loan payments doubled and credit card payments climbed more than 50 percent for New Yorkers in many working-class, outer-borough neighborhoods. Debt burdens rose throughout the city, mirroring trends we’ve documented in our research across the country. New Yorkers with student loans got a five-year pandemic reprieve, but that ended with President Trump’s inauguration, adding another monthly payment back into already-strained budgets.
What credit card debt really represents: When healthcare costs are too high, families turn to credit cards to cover the bill. When a cart full of groceries costs twice what it did five years ago, credit card debt keeps the family fed. When Con Ed cuts deals with Big Tech data centers that spike electricity prices, credit cards keep the household lights on.
Figure 2
Our research shows that more than 110 million Americans—including millions of New Yorkers—cannot pay off their credit card bill each month2 and are drowning in sky-high interest charges imposed by some of the biggest banks in the world, including banks like JP Morgan Chase and American Express that call New York City home. And while these banks reap record profits, working-class New Yorkers are falling further and further behind—maxing out their credit cards, facing past-due student loan bills, and missing car payments in outer boroughs where public transit often doesn’t reach.
Why This Matters Now
This data outlines the stakes for the governing moment facing policymakers in New York City. Too many New Yorkers are one unexpected expense away from financial catastrophe. They need relief now—not promises of future programs, not incrementalism that might help down the road.
Our research also brings into sharper focus the contrast between working-class New Yorkers struggling to stay afloat and New York’s biggest banks and businesses that profit from this distress, even as they fight the Mamdani Administration tooth and nail to block progress.
The proposals in Lowering Costs show how to deliver. From lowering the cost of health care through new “penny pharmacies,” to making housing more affordable by capping rent increases, to tackling high electricity prices through community energy programs, these ideas are concrete and would immediately make a difference in New Yorkers’ lives.
In the coming weeks, we’ll release more data showing New York’s affordability crisis through the lens of New Yorkers’ debts. We’re also inviting New York researchers to partner with us and work with this data directly. Together, we can measure the benefits to New Yorkers as the city’s economic landscape shifts—and make the public case that city government can make life more affordable for families in every corner of New York.
This project wouldn’t be possible without Lorelei Salas, former commissioner of the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, and Winston Berkman-Breen, Protect Borrowers’ legal director, who organized and edited the volume of papers that follows. Their invaluable expertise and leadership are building a roadmap for what progressive city governance can and should look like.
For too long, New York’s staggering inequality has made economic justice feel out of reach. As costs have soared, City Hall has seen its role as simply helping people scrape by, not get ahead. But that is changing. By taking concrete actions today to lower costs, hold corporations accountable, and improve how government works, Mayor Mamdani and city policymakers can reshape New York’s economy and make the city live up to its billing: as the greatest city in the world.
Let’s get to work.
LOWERING COSTS
Introduction by Lorelei Salas and Winston Berkman-Breen
For too many New Yorkers, the math simply doesn’t add up. Wages have stagnated while the cost of housing, healthcare, groceries, child care, and basic services has climbed steadily out of reach. Affordability is not an abstract policy goal—it is the difference between a family staying in the city they love and being forced to leave it. Lowering the cost of our daily expenses is a critical component of making New York City work for everyone, and the Mayor has real tools to advance this goal.
This section outlines concrete actions the Mayor can take with existing authority to directly reduce the financial burdens New Yorkers carry every day. From introducing competition to the utilities and insurance markets, to creating new small business incentives, to offering life-saving prescription drugs for pennies on the dollar, these proposals target the pressure points where the Mamdani Administration can make an immediate difference, without waiting for Albany or Washington.
Making the city affordable means making it affordable for all, so that living here is not a toll that prices out the people who make New York, New York.
Download the full set of “Lowering Costs” proposals below:
AMERICAN ECONOMIC LIBERTIES PROJECT
Lowering Costs by Reducing the Price of Prescription Drugs
The Penny Price Pharmacy Model: Lower Drug Prices Without New Taxes After H.R. 1
EMMA FREER
SOLAR ONE
Lowering Costs Through a Clean Energy Strategy
Powering Affordability: A Blueprint for Tackling NYC’s Energy Cost Crisis Through Solar and Bill Relief
KATE SELDEN
MOBILIZATION FOR JUSTICE
Lowering Costs for Homeowners
Preserving Affordable Homeownership in NYC: Emergency Grants for Homeowners, Property Tax Abatements for Seniors, and Public Administrator for Co-op Estates
MACKENZIE LEW AND SHIVANI JACELON
NEIGHBORHOOD TRUST FINANCIAL PARTNERS
Lowering Costs for Low- to Moderate-Income New Yorkers
A Three-Pronged Plan to Increase Financial and Housing Stability for Low- to Moderate-Income New Yorkers
ELISE NUSSBAUM, FITZGERALD RESTITUYO, TAMIKA HOWELL, AND IVANIA MORA
SMALL BUSINESS MAJORITY
Lowering Costs for Small Businesses
Redirecting Support and Reforming Commercial Leasing to Strengthen New York City Small Businesses
LINDSEY VIGODA
INSTITUTE FOR LOCAL SELF-RELIANCE
Lowering Costs by Offering an Alternative Energy Supplier
NYC Can Take Charge of Its Electricity Supply
JOHN FARRELL
VANDERBILT POLICY ACCELERATOR
Lowering Costs of Homeowners Insurance
Public Homeowners Insurance
BRIAN SHEARER
Notes:
- This analysis uses data from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel (UC-CCP), a 2 percent nationally representative sample of U.S. adults with credit records. We thank the California Policy Lab for hosting and documenting the UC-CCP. ↩︎
- See The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers, Interest Nation: The State of America’s Credit Card Debt Crisis (2026), https://protectborrowers.org/resource/report-interest-nation-the-state-of-americas-credit-card-debt-crisis/.
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Acknowledgment: The authors would like to thank Eduard Nilaj for his ongoing research and data analyses for the Affordable NYC Now project.
About Protect Borrowers
Protect Borrowers (formerly Student Borrower Protection Center) is a nonprofit organization led by a team of experts, lawyers, and advocates fighting to build an economy where debt doesn’t limit opportunity. We investigate financial abuses, take predatory companies to court, and push for policies to protect working people from debt traps. We aim to deliver immediate relief to families while building power, driving systemic change, and fighting for racial and economic justice.
About The Century Foundation
The Century Foundation (TCF) is a progressive, independent think tank that conducts research, develops solutions, and drives policy change to make people’s lives better. We pursue economic, racial, gender, and disability equity in education, health care, and work, and promote U.S. foreign policy that fosters international cooperation, peace, and security. TCF is based in New York, with an office in Washington, D.C.
Contributing Organizations
Authors who contributed articles to this compendium hail from a diverse array of advocacy organizations and academic institutions with strong ties to New York City. Authors’ views are not necessarily those of their institutions, nor do authors necessarily endorse any piece in the compendium aside from their own.