Assembly Budget Includes $7 Billion to Pay Off Unemployment Trust Fund Debt

Speaker Carl Heastie and Assembly Labor Committee Chair Harry B. Bronson today announced that the Assembly’s State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2025-26 Budget proposal includes $7 billion to eliminate the Unemployment Trust Fund debt.

“New York’s businesses - and small businesses in particular - need our help,” Speaker Heastie said. “Eliminating the Unemployment Trust Fund debt is vital to easing the burden placed on small businesses by lowering the debilitatingly high rates they had to pay, and will ensure that New Yorkers who apply for UI receive an amount that has kept up with the increased cost of living.”

“Eliminating the Unemployment Trust Fund debt is vital for New York’s businesses and workers,” said Assemblymember Bronson said. “By doing this we will ease the burden on small businesses across the state and help New Yorkers receiving unemployment, because we will be able to make good on raising the weekly unemployment benefit once the trust fund debt is paid and the trust is solvent. For these reasons, I’ve worked hard to secure funding for this important provision in the proposed Assembly budget and I will continue working to support our small businesses and workers.”

When New York went “on pause” during the COVID-19 pandemic, more than a million people lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Paying unemployment insurance (UI) to these New Yorkers caused the unemployment trust fund to go into more than $10 billion of debt to the federal government. This debt has been, and normally would be, paid by the employers. The $7 billion in the Assembly’s budget would pay back the debt owed to the federal government. Eliminating the debt will lower the rates that New York businesses currently pay into UI system and ensure New Yorkers that lose their jobs are able to receive UI benefits that keep up with the cost of living. UI benefits are currently set at 2019 levels.