Mamdani’s Main Goal Is Helping The ‘Working Class.’ He Can’t Define It.

New York City’s Democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani has, like many socialists before him, staked his reputation on fighting for the “working class” — but even when asked directly to do so, he could not define what exactly “working class” is.

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Mamdani’s efforts in New York City have focused on things like rent freezes and additional taxes on the wealthy and business owners. And when the math doesn’t quite work out — largely because business owners invest where the government is less hostile — he demands a bailout from Albany and then touts his agenda as a resounding success. All of that is built around his goal of making things more affordable for the “working class” — and when the New York Times’ Lulu Garcia-Navarro asked him about it directly, he struggled to define the term.

“Part of this discussion, of course, is the organization that you are part of, which is the D.S.A., and it’s having a moment, right?” Garcia-Navarro began. “They are being discussed in both good ways and bad, to put it mildly. And at the heart of it is this idea that they are fighting for the working class. And it made me wonder: How do you define the working class?”

“I think if you have to work to pay your bills, I think that that is one definition of being a part of the working class,” Mamdani replied.

“So someone making $250,000 a year is working class?” Garcia-Navarro pushed back.

“I haven’t asked myself where it starts and stops,” Mamdani said, adding, “What I would say is those who are working to try and afford the basic dignities of life and aren’t able to do so, I think that that is also working class.”

He went on to say that the “working class” — which he still had not really defined — was the only real “majority” in the United States.

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“It just seems a very easy answer to what is a complicated question,” Garcia-Navarro continued to press, clearly not buying Mamdani’s spin. “Because politically, if you’re saying everyone is the working class, or anyone that gets a salary is the working class, yes, that opens up your tent. But practically speaking, we are divided by income — and especially if you want to tax people, where you draw those lines matter.”

“I’ve drawn it at about a million dollars a year,” Mamdani said.

Garcia-Navarro responded with the obvious question: “So anyone under a million dollars a year in income is working class?”

Mamdani laughed off the question, adding, “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying, in terms of fiscal policy, I think a lot of our politics has been a debate over who you leave out. And I’m more interested in debates of how you bring more in. But yes, I do want to raise taxes on people who make more than a million a year.”

“Someone who is a janitor is going to feel some kind of way about that description if you’re lumping them in with someone who’s a lawyer. That feels like a distinction that might matter,” Garcia-Navarro tried once more.

Mamdani finally addressed the question directly, though he still failed to answer it. Instead, he argued that fixating on definitions — such as “what is a Democratic socialist?” and “what exactly makes someone working class?”— was a political distraction that kept people from getting things done.

Apparently frustrated with the question, he added, “Look, I think I’ve defined it to you as someone who works to afford their life.”

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