Never let a crisis go to waste.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the idea behind Mayor Mamdani\u2019s latest ploy, a racial-equity report<\/a> and \u201ctrue cost of living\u201d measure that supposedly shows that 62% of New Yorkers \u2014 about 5 million people \u2014 can\u2019t make ends meet.<\/p>\n The plan is simple: Set the bar unreasonably high, declare a sweeping crisis and use that to justify a bigger, more intrusive government.<\/p>\n Yes, life here is expensive, for lots of reasons.<\/p>\n Rent is brutal and getting worse: Manhattan\u2019s median rents now exceed $5,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n Child care is crushing, partly because center operators can\u2019t find adequate facility space.<\/p>\n Public schools don\u2019t offer a good enough education to keep families in the city. But instead of fixing those cost drivers by increasing the supply of housing and reforming public schools, City Hall is redefining the problem in a way that makes massive intervention look inevitable.<\/p>\n Creating a \u2018need\u2019<\/p>\n The city isn\u2019t merely defining poverty; it\u2019s asking who can meet a much bigger, softer, more elastic standard of economic security.<\/p>\n For families with children, that threshold is $159,197.<\/p>\n Of course, millions fall short \u2014 by design.<\/p>\n Under the mayor\u2019s framework, a supermajority of New Yorkers are cast as being in need of government rescue.<\/p>\n Once that need is established, City Hall gets a free pass to push more spending, more mandates, more programs, more rules \u2014 and, ultimately, more control.<\/p>\n Just look at what comes attached to it.<\/p>\n The equity plan covers 45 agencies, seven domains, more than 200 goals, 800 strategies and 600 indicators.<\/p>\n Who hears \u201c600 indicators\u201d and thinks, \u201cFinally, the city is going to work better?\u201d<\/p>\n No, what it means is more and bigger government, slower bureaucracy and fatter budgets.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n The racial disparities noted in the report should be addressed but not by doing what hasn\u2019t worked time and again.<\/p>\n About 43.7% of white New Yorkers fall below the Mamdani threshold, compared with 65.6% of black New Yorkers and 77.6% of Hispanic New Yorkers.<\/p>\n Unequal earnings matter, but the real engine of the crisis is New York\u2019s crushing costs, driven by the private sector\u2019s inability to supply more of what the city needs.<\/p>\n Plenty else to fix<\/p>\n That should lead to a simple agenda.<\/p>\n