Hochul will drain reserves to pay off $7B in unemployment insurance debt for businesses in last-minute budget move

Gov.Kathy Hochul is delivering a big win to businesses that have been pressuring her to pay off their billions of dollars in unemployment-insurance debt — but she’s stealing the cash from state reserves to do it.Hochul said Monday that the state will cover the roughly $7 billion debt still lingering for employers from the pandemic.The businesses had hoped federal money that the state received during COVID-19 would at least partly be used to help cover the deluge of unemployment claims spurred by the pandemic, as most other states did.But the state used the money for other things, and the businesses have been forced to pay into a fund to pay down the debt.

Hochul agreed to bail out the businesses with the state’s cash reserves as part of the massive looming deal over the roughly $254 billion state budget.“This has created an incredible burden on our employers, our small businesses in particular, who’ve been paying extra penalties and costs into the unemployment insurance fund, and I want to alleviate that,” Hochul told reporters after an event on Long Island.Benefits for people on unemployment will also increase as part of the deal, having been paused while the debt was still owed.“Increasing the maximum unemployment insurance benefit and addressing the unemployment trust fund deficit are critical steps toward supporting unemployed workers struggling to make ends meet while providing relief to employers,” New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento wrote in a statement.“The maximum benefit, stagnant at $504 per week since 2019, has for too long fallen short of meeting the basic needs of families facing financial hardship,” Cilento continued.Heather Mulligan, president and CEO of the Business Council, told The Post, “Businesses across New York State are grateful to finally be relieved of this multi-billion-dollar burden that has served as an added tax on all our employers for the past four years.”The proposal to pay off the debt has bee...