Elections to Watch in Western Queens: The Wage Is the Floor, Not the Ladder

Western Queens has seven Democratic primaries on my scorecard this month. An open congressional seat. An open State Senate seat. Three open Assembly seats. Two incumbents defending theirs, Jessica Ramos in the Senate and Diana Moreno in the Assembly. Most of these races are being covered the same way: DSA versus the establishment. Almost none is being covered on the question that decides whether families can build a future here, not just hang on.

That question is income. Not only what you pay, but what you earn, and whether what you earn ever becomes something you keep. The candidates have plenty to say about your rent. Many have plenty to say about your paycheck too. Far fewer have anything to say about the rungs above it: a skill that raises your ceiling, a business of your own, a home you can pass on.

I ran for Assembly in District 36 last winter to push opportunity into the affordability debate. I stepped back after the February special election, and I am not on the June ballot. So this is not a candidate’s pitch. It is a voter’s framework, and I am sharing mine. I vet candidates through several lenses. Healthcare access. Reproductive rights. LGBTQ rights. Immigration and human rights. First Amendment protections. This piece is a deep dive into one of them: economic mobility.

I built a companion scorecard. I read campaign websites first, then candidate social media, then news coverage. I scored each candidate on four measures: wages and job stability, pathways beyond a four-year degree, small business, and homeownership and generational wealth-building. A filled mark means a candidate names a specific bill or program. A half mark means the priority is stated without one. An empty mark means I found nothing.

Here is what the marks show. The paycheck is the most-answered measure on the ballot. The ladder above it is the least.

On wages and work, the field is serious. Claire Valdez, in the 7th Congressional District, has written the bills: just cause before a firing, limits on workplace surveillance, paid sick leave for delivery workers. Jessica Ramos chairs the Senate Labor Committee and carries a real record, from salary transparency to construction wage-theft liability. Julie Won runs on universal paid leave. Brian Romero, in the 34th Assembly District, backs a living wage indexed to inflation. This is the half of affordability the candidates have learned to talk about. Good.

Now climb one rung. On pathways beyond a four-year degree, most of the field goes quiet. Apprenticeships, trade training, tuition-free CUNY: the building blocks of a raise that does not depend on a union contract you may never get. Vichal Kumar names federal apprenticeship funding with priority for NYCHA residents and CUNY students. Shamsul Haque, a former NYPD lieutenant commander running in the 30th, backs tuition-free CUNY and SUNY. Samantha Kattan backs A New Deal for CUNY by bill number. After that, the column is mostly empty.

On small business, the silence is thinner than I expected, but it is still mostly silence. Three candidates name real mechanisms. Kumar has a federal small-business plan: no-interest startup loans and help converting firms into worker cooperatives. Romero backs commercial rent stabilization and adding Middle Eastern and North African owners to the MWBE program. Kattan backs the Small Business Rent Stabilization Act by number. In a borough built on immigrant-owned storefronts, three of nineteen is not enough. It is also not zero.

Then the last rung, the one that turns a wage into wealth a family keeps. Here the field is emptiest. Fifteen of nineteen candidates name no homeownership mechanism at all. The exceptions: Kattan backs the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which lets tenants buy their building and hold it as a limited-equity co-op. Haque backs community land trusts and property-tax relief for homeowners. Mary Jobaida, in my old district, backs land trusts and help for small homeowners trying to keep what they have. That is the whole list.

One candidate marks every column. Samantha Kattan names a mechanism on wages, on pathways, on small business, and on ownership. You do not have to support her to see what her scorecard proves: a candidate can answer the whole question. Most have simply not been asked to.

I want to be clear about where this comes from. It comes from inside the progressive tradition, not outside it. The movement that won the $15 wage and rent stabilization built the floor, and the floor matters. But a floor is not a ladder. The same movement should be naming the rungs: the training, the loan, the deed. Cost relief lets people stay. Mobility lets them rise.

This is not a call to abandon the cost fight or the wage fight. It is a call to demand the rest. When a candidate knocks on your door, ask past the paycheck. How will you help me learn a trade, start a business, own a home? Read the companion scorecard before you decide.

Early voting runs June 13 through 21. Primary Day is June 23. Ask for the whole ladder.