Zohran Mamdani is about to get a massive raise — and some swanky new accommodations.
After he’s sworn in at the abandoned Old City Hall subway station on January 1, Mamdani will earn a $258,750 annual salary as New York City mayor, a more than 80% increase from the $142,000 annual salary that he earns as a state assemblyman.
He will also move into Gracie Mansion, the official mayoral residence, where he will not have to pay rent.
In a statement, Mamdani said the decision to move into Gracie Mansion “came down to our family’s safety and the importance of dedicating all of my focus on enacting the affordability agenda New Yorkers voted for.”
Forbes has estimated that the state assemblyman’s net worth is about $200,000. Mamdani has lived in a rent-stabilized apartment in Astoria since 2018, and has said that his monthly rent there is $2,300.
How Mamdani’s salary measures up
On the one hand, Mamdani’s hefty new salary shouldn’t be a huge surprise: The demands and responsibilities of managing a city of more than 8 million people are far greater than representing roughly 140,000 people in Queens.
And it’s not the highest mayoral salary out there: The mayor of San Francisco earns a salary of more than $380,000, while the mayor of Los Angeles earns just over $300,000.
Still, it’s far more than the $174,000 annual salary earned by most rank-and-file US senators and House members.
It’s also more than the $223,500 annual salary that House Speaker Mike Johnson earns, or the $246,400 annual salaries of President Donald Trump’s cabinet secretaries.
Mike Bloomberg, a billionaire, notably declined to accept the full salary during his tenure as mayor from 2002 to 2013, choosing instead to accept a $1 salary.
A new home on the Upper East Side
Almost every New York City mayor has lived at some point in Gracie Mansion, a two-story home on the Upper East Side overlooking the East River.
The one exception: Bloomberg, who opted to live in his own mansion a few blocks away on East 79th Street.
The former mayor even said that his successors shouldn’t live in the mansion, but that advice apparently went unheeded: Mayor Bill de Blasio moved into the house in 2014, and Mayor Eric Adams also opted to live there.
AP Photo/Seth Wenig
The mayor also receives security protection from the New York City Police Department and has access to benefits available to other city employees, including health insurance.
In his statement on his impending move, Mamdani said that he and his wife Rama would “miss much about our home in Astoria,” including “cooking dinner side by side in our kitchen, sharing a sleepy elevator ride with our neighbors in the evening, hearing music and laughter vibrate through the walls of the apartment.”
“I will be a mayor for the line cooks on Steinway, for the children swinging at Dutch Kills Playground, for the bus riders waiting for the Q101,” Mamdani said. “While I may no longer live in Astoria, Astoria will always live inside me and the work I do.”
