‘This is only the beginning’: Mamdani celebrates making food delivery even pricier

BS BRIEF:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani says New York City’s new checkout rules generated an additional $104 million in tips for roughly 70,000 app-based delivery workers since January. The rules require delivery apps to display a tipping option during checkout, including a selectable 10% amount, a custom amount and the option to leave nothing.
The laws Mamdani touted were passed by the City Council and became law in August 2025, months before his mayoral term began. His administration did oversee their January 26 rollout and enforcement, but Council Majority Leader Shaun Abreu sponsored the underlying legislation.
The $104 million represents more money earned by delivery workers—but it also represents $104 million paid by New Yorkers already facing menu markups, service charges, delivery fees and what the apps call growing “tipping fatigue.”

MAMDANI CLAIMS $104 MILLION TIP VICTORY — BUT NEW YORKERS ARE STILL PICKING UP THE TAB

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has announced another triumph over capitalism. This time, the victory arrived in an insulated food-delivery bag.

Mamdani declared Wednesday that city rules forcing food-delivery platforms to restore prominent tipping options at checkout had generated an estimated $104 million in additional tips for delivery workers since late January.

“We’ve put $104 million back in delivery workers’ pockets,” Mamdani wrote on social media.

Then came the promise—or warning, depending on whether you deliver the food or pay the bill: “This is only the beginning.”

At a City Hall news conference, Mamdani accused Uber Eats and DoorDash of burying tipping options after New York began enforcing a minimum-pay standard for app-based delivery workers in December 2023.

“For years, delivery apps buried the tip button to pad their own bottom line, and delivery workers paid the price,” Mamdani said. “We changed the law, enforced it, and it’s working: $104 million has gone back into the pockets of the workers who keep this city fed, rain or shine.”

He added: “New York will not allow billion-dollar tech companies to boost their profits by taking money from working people.”

There is just one problem with the mayor’s victory lap.

Mamdani did not change the law. The New York City Council did. Local Laws 107 and 108 were passed in July 2025 and became law on August 14, 2025, after then-Mayor Eric Adams allowed them to take effect without his signature. Mamdani did not become mayor until months later.

The laws were sponsored by Council Member Shaun Abreu and require restaurant and grocery delivery platforms to offer a tipping option of at least 10% and display the option before or while an order is placed.

The Mamdani administration did implement and enforce the laws when they took effect on January 26, 2026.

That is not nothing.

Laws do not enforce themselves, and the mayor’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection has aggressively pursued delivery companies over wages, tips and other alleged violations.

But there is a difference between enforcing a law and presenting it as though it sprang fully formed from the mayor’s forehead six months after the City Council passed it.

Mamdani’s office pushed back on the criticism.

“A law is only as good as its implementation,” a spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “We have been intentional about enforcing the laws on the books so that we are putting money back into the pockets of working New Yorkers.”

That is a defensible argument.

It is also a considerably more modest claim than “we changed the law.”

Council Majority Leader Abreu made clear who handled that part.

“When we passed the minimum pay guarantee for deliveristas in 2023, the apps responded by hiding the tip option from their customers,” Abreu said. “That cost deliveristas over half a billion dollars in earnings.”

“We refused to let that stand,” he continued, “and I was proud to sponsor the law to restore tipping at checkout.”

Abreu also credited the Mamdani administration’s enforcement, saying the law’s success would not have been possible without the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.

City data show the checkout changes had an immediate effect.

During the four weeks before the new rules took effect, delivery workers received an average of $1.18 in tips per delivery. During the first four weeks afterward, that number increased to $2.29, a gain of $1.11 per order.

The city estimates workers are now on pace to collect an additional $184 million annually—approximately $2,287 per worker.

The controversy began after the city introduced a minimum-pay standard for delivery workers.

When the wage rules took effect in December 2023, Uber Eats and DoorDash moved their tip screens from checkout to a separate post-purchase process. The city accused the companies of using “design tricks” that made tipping more difficult and less visible.

According to a Department of Consumer and Worker Protection report, average tips on the two platforms fell from $3.66 to 93 cents per delivery in a single week after those changes.

By January 2026, the average had dropped to 76 cents.

The department estimated workers had lost approximately $554 million in tip income since the platforms altered their checkout processes.

Ligia Guallpa, executive director of the Workers’ Justice Project and co-founder of Los Deliveristas Unidos, accused the companies of deliberately undermining worker earnings.

“Instead of respecting New York’s historic minimum pay law, app companies chose to manipulate their platforms to discourage tipping and protect their own profits, stripping millions of dollars from the pockets of delivery workers who earned that money,” Guallpa said.

“Restoring this income means restoring economic dignity to thousands of delivery workers and their families.”

DoorDash rejects the city’s characterization.

John Horton, the company’s head of North American public policy, has said moving the tip prompt until after checkout was neither deceptive nor unusual.

“Moving tipping to after checkout isn’t novel or nefarious,” Horton said. “It’s how tipping works in many areas of life.”

He accused city officials of trying to pressure consumers into paying more.

“What’s really happening is the DCWP wants to pressure consumers to tip even more,” Horton said in an earlier statement. “As we’ve said, forcing people to tip may as well be a tax. It should be up to consumers, not politicians, whether they want to tip more in New York.”

DoorDash and Uber sued to block the checkout law before it took effect, arguing that forcing the platforms to suggest a minimum 10% tip violated their constitutional rights and would burden customers already weary of constant tipping prompts.

A federal judge rejected that argument in January.

U.S. District Judge George Daniels ruled that the companies had not demonstrated a clear likelihood of succeeding and said the laws advanced the city’s interests in “enhancing cost transparency at the time of checkout, restoring consumer choice, and providing protections to delivery workers.”

DoorDash called the policy a mistake. “Forcing platforms to solicit a tip before checkout at a time when New Yorkers are sick of tipping culture and facing a growing affordability crisis is bad policy,” a company spokesperson said. That affordability question is at the center of the backlash.

Actor Michael Rapaport accused Mamdani of taking credit for legislation that predated his administration. “This guy is a fantastic lying politician,” Rapaport wrote. “He had literally nothing to do with this.”

Rapaport noted that the Council passed the measure under Adams and that it merely took effect once Mamdani was in office. “He just taking the credit,” Rapaport wrote.

National Review contributor Pradheep Shanker offered an even shorter assessment: “So you increased prices for your citizens? Congrats.”

Washington Free Beacon reporter Jon Levine joked: “Coming soon — $50 avocado toast.”

The city insists customers are not being forced to tip. That is technically true.

The checkout screen must offer a 10% selection, but it must also permit a custom amount or no tip at all. City officials also say the new requirement has not damaged demand. Delivery platforms processed approximately 3.3 million orders per week after the law took effect—about 700,000 more weekly orders than in December 2023.

“Allowing consumers the clear ability to tip hardworking deliveristas benefits our workers and strengthens our economy,” Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Samuel Levine said. But that does not settle the cost argument. Delivery workers are currently entitled to a city-mandated minimum rate of $22.13 per hour for qualifying work time, excluding tips. Customers can then face marked-up menu prices, delivery fees, service charges and a prominent tip request before the order is complete.

That means Mamdani’s $104 million announcement can be viewed in two very different ways.

To delivery workers, it is restored compensation they lost when the apps made tipping harder.

To customers, it is another $104 million leaving their bank accounts in a city where ordering a sandwich can already resemble financing a small appliance.

Both things can be true. What is harder to defend is Mamdani pretending the story began when he arrived.