Mandy Breniser of Cheektowaga already had a cart piled high with Cheerios, diapers and other groceries Friday when she was joined for a choreographed stroll around the store by Gov. Kathy Hochul and a gaggle of reporters following them, recording their every move.
“The sizes of boxes is shrinking and the prices are going up,” Breniser said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul shops with Mandy Breniser of Lackawanna with Breniser’s young daughter in tow for a media event highlighting Hochul’s 2025 State of the State Affordability Agenda at Tops in Cheektowaga, Dec. 13, 2024.
As Hochul cooed at Breniser’s 10-month-old daughter, they talked for cameras about how hard it has been for Breniser and families like hers to keep up with the high cost of living.
All the while cameras rolled and public relations workers tersely wrangled reporters through the store.
Hochul recalled what she said were her own struggles to make ends meet each month when her family was young, and they traveled through the store picking up items and lamenting price tags, such as the $4.99 sticker on a dozen eggs.
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“I remember my mom used to make us fried egg sandwiches for a cheap dinner,” Hochul said.
Then there was the $3.94 sale price of a gallon of whole milk Breniser would typically use with her baby’s formula.
“You can’t just say, ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to give my baby formula today,’ “ Hochul said.
When Hochul asked about the other challenges facing her family’s bank account, Breniser mentioned day care.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, right, shops with Mandy Breniser of Lackawanna and Breniser’s young daughter at Tops Markets on Union Road in Cheektowaga on Friday.
“I ended up having to leave my job because we couldn’t find child care, so that is something I understand,” Hochul said.
It was part of a news event Hochul’s office put together Friday, inviting members of the media to watch as she joined one of her constituents to shop for groceries at the Tops Markets grocery store on Union Road in Cheektowaga. The event was meant to highlight her proposal to send checks to middle- and low-income earners in New York to help them manage the cost of living.
Under the “Inflation Refund” proposal, single New Yorkers earning less than $150,000 would receive $300, couples making less than $300,000 would get $500. It would be included as part of next year’s budget.
“We brought in $3 billion more than we anticipated because everyone was paying so much more for everything,” Hochul told Breniser. “We want to get that money back to shoppers like you.”
The event was also likely an attempt to win Hochul some points with voters.
A Siena College Research Institute poll released earlier this week showed the majority of New Yorkers wouldn’t re-elect Hochul for governor.
“As we now enter the 2026 gubernatorial election cycle, Hochul starts with less than an enthusiastic welcome from the voters,” said Steven Greenberg, Siena College pollster.
Governor Kathy Hochul speaks to members of the media, standing with Mandy Breniser of Lackawanna after tagging along for Breniser’s grocery trip at Tops in Cheektowaga, Dec. 13, 2024.
Although it has been a while since Hochul, who earns $250,000 per year, has had to worry about grocery, gas and heating costs, she worked hard Friday to seem relatable to the average working-class voter in Western New York on the issues that matter to them. The same Siena poll showed that 43% of voters feel the state should make the cost of living the state’s top priority.
This is after punishing losses in the recent election, after which Democrats have admitted they failed to connect with voters on their concerns about inflation and the high cost of living.
Those issues were hammered by President-elect Donald Trump, who said that if he were elected, “grocery prices will come tumbling down,” though he has since walked back those claims.
Hochul admitted she hadn’t been grocery shopping for two months before a similar shopping event in Albany earlier this week. She leaned heavily on examples from her past, such as how difficult it was to shop with two young children 20 months apart, each one fighting for their place in the shopping cart, and how she shopped in a Tops store very similar to the one in Cheektowaga, where her husband is from, and while she was growing up in Woodlawn.
But she was quick to list present-day examples of things she has done as governor to try to ease the pain for today’s Western New Yorkers.
As Breniser listed the challenges her family faces – the cost of day care, groceries and other bills – it gave Hochul the opportunity to list the actions her administration has taken to address them.
“We’ve already done, since I’ve been governor, a middle-class tax cut. We expedited that. We did a property tax cut,” she said. “We also, when we think about education costs, we made tuition assistance available to more people and people who are part-time students. We are helping families with child care.”
Hochul also noted that she pushed to have the state’s minimum wage tied to inflation before inflation was a major issue, granted a child tax cut and other moves she would make in the future, in relation to things like heating costs.