Happy Thursday in a city under immense fiscal pressure, with few and dwindling options to dig itself out.

It’s budget season in New York, the annual tradition in which lawmakers and pundits put aside their plans for expensive reform, tighten their belts and sit down to the business of cost-cutting. This year, the Mamdani administration faces one of the most dire budget deficits in years, a fact which they blame on frivolous spending and mismanagement by the Adams administration. As reported by the New York Times, Mamdani is looking to recover $1.3 billion in savings by delaying or reversing some of the progressive initiatives that helped him get elected nearly five months ago.

There are two potential lifelines — one that would help immediately, and one that would help next year — on which Mamdani is relying. Both are shaping up to deliver less relief than originally anticipated.

The first is Wall Street bonuses. Last year, record high bonuses from employees in the financial sector funneled billions of dollars into the city’s coffers. As recently as last month, another strong year was boded from Wall Street for similar results for 2026. But then came the Iran War and a precipitous market dip, threatening the swell in taxable income that Mamdani already built into his budget projections. If bonuses fail to live up to last year’s historic highs, the city will be faced with an even larger budget gap than expected.

“Last year we were surprised at how resilient Wall Street was,” Rahul Jain, state deputy comptroller for New York City, told The City. ”It doesn’t seem to be so robust this year.”

The second lifeline, which promises to ease next year’s budget headaches, is the FIFA World Cup. The international event, slated for this summer, was originally projected to drive a $3 billion economic boost in the city. However, advance bookings at New York City hotels are even lower than they were last year, and the city comptroller predicts that expenditures on things like policing will outweigh any gains in tax revenue.

It seems sky-high hotel prices, combined with weariness over Trump’s border policies, are driving tourists to seek cheaper accommodations or skip the trip altogether.

It’s a bleak picture for New York. But if you want to support the city you love, tell your friends to subscribe to the Daily Brief. If my boss gives me a raise, that’s more taxable income for the city to balance its budget!

— Jesse Goodman

From the beginning of Jane Comfort’s dance career, she has incorporated overt political themes in her work. The artistic director and choreographer premiered her latest work, “The Gulf of America,” along with two older but relevant pieces at La MaMa in the East Village on Thursday, March 19, through Sunday, March 22.

Curating the program took thorough effort, as the challenges of putting on a new performance was matched with the challenges of resurrecting her old ones, “Artificial Horizon” (1983) and “Bites” (1996). Comfort says her work aims to reflect events and comment on society rather than provide clear answers. This approach was on full display in Comfort’s newest “The Gulf of America,” a work that comments on current immigration politics and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confrontations in the U.S.

Learn more about Jane Comfort and her artistic process.

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