"Thank" Your Elected Official for Your UI Debt Bill
Private sector employers across New York State recently received another Unemployment Insurance (UI) tax bill for 2023, called the “Interest Assessment Surcharge (IAS),” to pay more than $130 million in interest on the state’s remaining $6.8 billion in federal UI program loans.
Under existing state law, the entirety of these federal advances, and interest costs, are repaid through increased payroll taxes on employers. The IAS and elevated levels of federal and state UI payroll taxes are expected to last for much of this decade, adding hundreds of millions to employers’ payroll costs.
This borrowing was the result of New York’s March 2020 order that all non-essential businesses to "reduce their in-person workforce at any work locations by 100%," resulting in the loss of 1.6 million in-state jobs and an unprecedented level of claims for UI benefits. This quickly put the state’s program into the red and made federal borrowing necessary to maintain benefit payments. Since the pandemic, more than 30 states have borrowed money from the federal government to fund their UI programs, and all but one -- New York -- have used some combination of federal and state resources to alleviate the burden on their private sector employers.
In April 2023, New York State adopted a $229 billion budget for FY 2024 without any funds to reduce the UI tax burden on business.
Send your state representative a "Thank You" letter for this year's UI debt bill and a reminder that New York employers are demanding the state legislature to act on UI tax relief.
To learn more about the state's UI debt, click here.
"Thank" Your Elected Official for Your UI Debt Bill
Private sector employers across New York State recently received another Unemployment Insurance (UI) tax bill for 2023, called the “Interest Assessment Surcharge (IAS),” to pay more than $130 million in interest on the state’s remaining $6.8 billion in federal UI program loans.
Under existing state law, the entirety of these federal advances, and interest costs, are repaid through increased payroll taxes on employers. The IAS and elevated levels of federal and state UI payroll taxes are expected to last for much of this decade, adding hundreds of millions to employers’ payroll costs.
This borrowing was the result of New York’s March 2020 order that all non-essential businesses to "reduce their in-person workforce at any work locations by 100%," resulting in the loss of 1.6 million in-state jobs and an unprecedented level of claims for UI benefits. This quickly put the state’s program into the red and made federal borrowing necessary to maintain benefit payments. Since the pandemic, more than 30 states have borrowed money from the federal government to fund their UI programs, and all but one -- New York -- have used some combination of federal and state resources to alleviate the burden on their private sector employers.
In April 2023, New York State adopted a $229 billion budget for FY 2024 without any funds to reduce the UI tax burden on business.
Send your state representative a "Thank You" letter for this year's UI debt bill and a reminder that New York employers are demanding the state legislature to act on UI tax relief.
To learn more about the state's UI debt, click here.