The Florida Chamber of Commerce planted a digital billboard in the heart of Times Square naming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani its "Economic Developer of the Year", a pointed jab at the policies critics say are pushing jobs and residents south.
The billboard, positioned at the corner of Broadway and West 43rd Street in Manhattan, carries a two-word thank-you note to Mamdani: "Thanks for the jobs!" The campaign, branded "Free Enterprise Florida," launched Monday with Chamber CEO Mark Wilson making the rounds to explain why his organization decided to take its argument straight to Mamdani's doorstep. Fox Business first reported the billboard's debut.
Wilson did not hold back about the campaign's purpose. The Chamber, he said, wanted to highlight what it sees as a growing exodus of wealth, businesses, and families from New York, driven by high taxes and heavy regulation, into Florida's lower-tax environment.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Wilson laid out the Chamber's case in blunt terms. He framed the billboard not as a stunt but as a warning about the consequences of what he called socialist economic policies.
Wilson told reporters:
"We wanted to thank him for the jobs, the companies, the people that they're pushing out of New York, and a lot of them are coming to Florida."
He went further, calling Mamdani's direction harmful not just to New Yorkers but to the broader national economy:
"What Mayor Mamdani is doing is dangerous for the country, right? It's bad for New Yorkers. It's bad for New York. It's very harmful for the country."
The billboard is hardly the only headache for Mamdani. His tenure has drawn sustained public backlash on multiple fronts, including from 9/11 families who petitioned to bar him from Ground Zero's 25th anniversary ceremony.
The Chamber backed its billboard with numbers drawn from IRS migration data. Florida, the Chamber claims, gains roughly $2.4 million in net taxable income every hour. New York, by contrast, loses approximately $1.1 million per hour. That gap adds up fast, and it represents real families and real paychecks moving from one state to the other.
On raw population movement, the Chamber's figures are just as lopsided: Florida gains a net 551 residents per day, while New York sheds 115 daily. Between 2022 and 2023 alone, New York saw a net loss of 21,176 tax returns to Florida, making Florida the single largest destination for New Yorkers leaving the state, the New York Post reported.
The Chamber's press release also drew a sharp budget comparison: New York's state budget is more than double Florida's. And New York City's municipal budget alone exceeds the entire Florida state budget by more than $8 billion.
Wilson pointed to Florida's track record on taxes as the key difference. "Florida's lowered taxes over 50 times in the last 15 years," he said. "And we have record revenues coming in because people want to be here. And when the economy grows, tax revenues grow. That's how free enterprise works."
Mamdani's political rise grew from the same Democratic Socialist movement that has rallied behind figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Wilson's campaign is a direct challenge to that governing philosophy, and he made clear he views the stakes in national terms.
New York City Hall did not let the billboard go unanswered. An unnamed City Hall spokesperson issued a statement to Fox News Digital pushing back on the Chamber's framing:
"By any metric, New York City's economy under Mayor Mamdani is as strong as it's ever been. We look forward to continuing to grow the economy while ensuring that working-class New Yorkers are benefiting from that growth."
That claim sits uneasily beside the IRS migration data the Chamber cited. If New York's economy is booming, the question is why tens of thousands of tax filers keep choosing to leave, and why net taxable income keeps flowing out of the state at a rate exceeding a million dollars an hour. City Hall offered no direct rebuttal to the migration figures.
The tensions around Mamdani extend well beyond economics. Victims' families have criticized him for skipping the 1993 World Trade Center bombing memorial in favor of a trip to Washington, and a Gold Star family blocked him from speaking at a Queens funeral for a soldier killed in an attack linked to Iran.
Wilson made clear that New York is just the first stop. He named Chicago, California, and Minneapolis as "runner-ups" for the dubious honor, cities and states he said are pursuing similar high-tax, high-regulation approaches that mirror Mamdani's New York.
"We had to start in New York City because the mayor of New York City, obviously, is pushing that community into a direction that it's not good for the people who live there," Wilson said. "But there's several runner-ups for this."
Wilson described Florida's $1.8 trillion economy as proof that low taxes and limited government deliver results. He cast the national debate in stark terms, arguing that the country faces a choice between the free-enterprise model and what he called a drift toward socialism. Wilson appeared on Fox News to make the case directly to a national audience.
He framed the billboard as part of a broader effort tied to the nation's 250th anniversary:
"Our country is celebrating 250 years this year, and it has a lot to do with our freedom, our faith and our free enterprise. And I think if we can focus on free enterprise for the next few years and make that what we base our decisions on, then this country can grow at 3% GDP, and we'll once again get back on the track that we need to be."
Wilson also pushed back against the idea that the campaign amounts to gloating. "Even though Florida is winning right now, we're not looking for New York to lose," he said. "We're hoping that these other states will say 'no' to this move towards socialism and say 'yes' to the very policies that our country was founded on."
And he addressed the cycle he sees at work in high-tax states: as residents and businesses leave, officials raise taxes on whoever remains, which only accelerates the departure. "What do people like Mayor Mamdani do?" Wilson asked. "They want to then increase taxes on the people who are left, which just further accelerates people leaving places like New York."
The Chamber did not disclose the cost or planned duration of the billboard campaign. And the specific IRS data years behind its headline figures remain unidentified. But the numbers Wilson cited, a million dollars an hour flowing out of New York, hundreds of residents leaving daily, are the kind of facts that speak for themselves, if they hold up to scrutiny.
When your own residents are voting with their feet and their wallets, no billboard can do more damage than the policies that put them on the road in the first place.