Gov. Kathy Hochul’s utility rebate checks are arriving in New York households, just days before voters decide whether to give the governor another term.
The payments began going out in September and will continue through December. An estimated 8.2 million households are set to receive between $100 and $200.
The $1 billion rebate program was included in the state budget approved in May. Hochul has promoted the payments as relief for rising energy bills, which have climbed between 27% and 46% during her tenure.
But Bruce Blakeman, the Republican Nassau County executive challenging Hochul in the November 3 election, has branded the checks a “big election-year scam.”
Blakeman previously dismissed the payments — calculated using income reported on 2024 tax returns — as “peanuts” and questioned how much difference they would make for New Yorkers struggling with everyday expenses.
Blakeman is not the only figure criticizing the rebate checks.
On Monday, two senior aides to Mayor Zohran Mamdani also criticized one-time payments, arguing that they “disempower” residents without addressing the underlying drivers of high costs, AMNY first reported.
“One-time handouts disempower people,” Mamdani’s Chief of Staff Elle Bisgaard-Church said at the New York City Policy Forum. “Means-tested programs segregate and encumber people. Private sector capture extracts wealth and tilts programs away from public welfare.”
Lina Khan, another Mamdani appointee and chair of the New York City Economic Development Corporation board, expressed a similar view, saying New York needs a broader, systemwide shift to help residents.
“This is not as much about one-time checks. This is not about one-time tax breaks,” Khan said, pointing to corporate greed as a factor driving sharply higher costs.
“It’s really about how do we address some of the upstream drivers,” said Khan, who served as chair of the Federal Trade Commission under President Joe Biden.
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Bisgaard-Church and Khan were not speaking specifically about Hochul’s rebate program.
Khan also did not weigh in when the state’s program was discussed later during the forum.
City Hall, meanwhile, expressed support for Hochul’s rebate plan in a statement issued Friday.
“We welcome all solutions that deliver for working families, including shorter-term solutions that provide immediate relief to working New Yorkers and longer-term structural changes that alleviate their key cost burdens,” a Mamdani spokesperson told The Post. “Our North Star is creating shared economic security and stability through material programs.”
Still, the apparent tension between Mamdani’s aides and policies such as Hochul’s rebate program underscored the sharp divide between the democratic socialist mayor and the moderate governor. The two appeared together on the campaign trail for the first time just three days before the policy forum.
Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists of America allies have repeatedly urged Hochul to embrace their “tax the rich” agenda. The mayor’s fervent young supporters have even booed her at previous appearances alongside Mamdani.
Hochul has pledged not to raise income taxes, although she did support the controversial pied-à-terre tax, which was intended to generate millions of dollars for the city.
Hochul’s resistance to Mamdani’s left-wing policies could be weakening as she seeks to win over his voter base Tuesday while pursuing a second four-year term.
On Wednesday, Hochul declined to say whether she would give in to Mamdani’s campaign to “tax the rich” if re-elected, offering instead a vague, word-salad response.
“There are no quid pro quos for us supporting each other I want to have a relationship with the mayor of New York,” she said — refusing to repeat her past comments outright opposing Mamdani’s tax plans.
Hochul and Blakeman were separated by around 14 points a week ahead of the election, with the Democratic governor leading her GOP challenger about 54% to 40%, a Sienna University poll found.