After the mayor vetoed the prevailing wage bill and declared his intent to veto the living wage act if passed, Quinn said the City Council would “move quickly” override the actions. “This year alone, city benefits to businesses and developers will cost taxpayers nearly $250 million,” she says, in a statement. “All we are trying to do is ensure that taxpayer investment is going to subsidize jobs that pay a reasonable wage.”

During his 15-minute speech, Bloomberg said both bills are based on “legally dubious theories” and if they become law, “we will challenge them in court.”

Citing projects such as Cornell and Technion University’s new applied science campus on Roosevelt Island, NYU’s new Center for Urban Science and Progress in Downtown Brooklyn and redevelopment and rezoning efforts in Willets Point and Coney Island, Bloomberg said the two bills would make it "harder and more costly" to bring economic opportunity to all five boroughs.

The mayor added that the legislation would also create a tiered minimum wage that would favor some businesses and industries over others. “When it comes to deciding what that pay should be, I believe that government has an obligation to set a minimum wage, but beyond that, private businesses should be free to make their own decisions," he said.

The mayor noted that the City Council “wisely carved out” a large amount of groups that would have been hurt by the bills, including certain developers of affordable housing, supermarkets and the Far West Side, including Related Co.’s Hudson Yards project. Using Fresh Direct’s move from Long Island City to the South Bronx as an example, he explained that the council delayed the living wage bill to ensure that it didn’t apply to the deal, which is estimated to bring more than 1,000 jobs to Hunts Point.

In response, Mike Fishman, president of Local 32BJ, a building service union with more than 120,000 members in eight states, says in a statement that the bill will ensure that building owners benefiting from public subsidies do not undercut private enterprise by paying wages below the predominant private-sector rate. “We agree with the mayor about the need to protect taxpayers,” he says. “But workers are taxpayers. This veto hurts city taxpayers, the economy and working families.”

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, argued that the vetoes come at a time when income inequality and the city’s wage gap is growing. “Over the past decade, City Hall has expanded government's role in the market through billions in subsidies to companies and developers, but doesn't want taxpayers to get a decent return on their investment,” he says, in a statement. “That's unacceptable.”