After the election, the dissection. Zohran Mamdani – a man whose policies include rent freezes, free public transport, city-owned grocery stores, higher taxes and free childcare – is Mayor of New York. The suspicion is that some people in banking voted for him.
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Mamdani voter data is being combed through. It includes people newish to New York City. Young people. People with bachelors and advanced degrees. People who rent. He was particularly popular in areas like Bushwick and Park Slope in Brooklyn, which John Carney, a former editor of Dealbreaker in its heyday, suggests are “enclaves of educated precarity” where people live “paycheck to paycheck despite six-figure incomes.”
Mamdani’s financial services constituency isn’t managing directors and portfolio managers, but the middle and back office and the most junior bankers who haven’t had a salary increase for three years and are renting expensive New York apartments. Even if you’re earning $150k a year in NYC, you can still be paying 30% of your income in rent in Brooklyn. “What used to feel like a path toward stability—education, professional work, a modest home—has become a monthly scramble to keep a roof overhead while saving nothing,” observes Carney.
Links: https://www.efinancialcareers.com/news/mamdani-bankers