Yellow taxi drivers and owners gathered across from Gov. Hochul’s Manhattan office on Wednesday to demand a full exemption from the New York City congestion pricing plan.

“Do the right thing!” the cabbies and cab owners chanted.

“The rest of this economy runs because this industry runs on the streets,” said Bharavi Desai, head of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.

“This makes no sense. This is simply a money grab from the MTA, out of the hands of the hardest working people in the city of New York.”

Congestion pricing, expected to go into effect next year, will charge vehicles for driving in Manhattan at 60th street and points south.

Under the expected congestion pricing guidelines, taxi and rideshare vehicles would get charged once a day.

The exact toll for entering the congestion zone has yet to be determined by the MTA — but officials have said the price will be within the $9 to $23 range.

The money is intended to provide $15 billion towards the MTA’s capital budget.

But taxi drivers say the toll could take more than $8,000 out of their pockets each year. The NYTWA is calling for cabbies to be fully exempted from the charge.

Taxi rides already subsidize MTA operations with two surcharges — a 50-cent-per-ride fee instituted in 2009, and a congestion surcharge of $2.50 on all rides that pass through Manhattan below 97th street.

“That’s why we are fighting for an exemption,” said Richard Chow, a taxi driver of 17 years. “We’ve already paid our share. This will be unfair and unjust.”

Chow said the added costs will come as yellow cab drivers continue to struggle with the economic impacts of the COVID pandemic and the rise of app-based rideshare services, both of which undercut the taxi industry.

Chow said he still owes $170,000 on a loan for his medallion.

“The yellow cab sector has still not recovered,” Desai said. “Every driver working today is [making] 25% [fewer] trips today than they did in February 2020.”

She noted that around 40% of yellow taxi medallions are idle, not attached to any car — even though many are collateral for loans.

“The only thing that’s adding up are the loan payments that are still due, even though that medallion is not even earning a dollar of revenue,” Desai added.

“Everything always falls on the back of the working class,” said John McDonagh, a 40-year yellow cab driver from Queens. “It’s just a way to pay for the MTA,” he said of the congestion pricing plan. “Congestion will not end.”

The Taxi Workers Alliance — which also represents some drivers working for Uber and Lyft — called on the MTA to impose congestion pricing on Uber and Lyft trips individually, and to ensure the companies pass on the fees directly to customers, not to drivers.

That position is in line with a letter sent to Hochul by the Independent Drivers Guild last month. IDG, which represents Uber drivers, has called on the state to increase a pre-existing $2.75 congestion surcharge by $1, rather than charging drivers one time per day.

“We want to see an MTA plan that recognizes that the Taxi and FHV industry is the other half of mass transportation in the city of New York,” Desai said. “We are supposed to be your partners, not your piggy bank.”