Do employers have to pay for unemployment benefits in New York - confused about how this works
I'm trying to understand how unemployment insurance works in NY. My manager mentioned something about employers paying unemployment taxes but I'm not sure if that means they pay for my benefits directly? Like when I file with NYS Department of Labor, does the money come from my old employer or from the state? I've been working for 3 years and never really thought about where the unemployment money actually comes from. Can anyone explain this?
11 comments
Join the conversation
KylieRose
Employers pay unemployment insurance taxes to fund the system, but they don't pay your benefits directly. In New York, employers pay State Unemployment Insurance (SUI) tax and Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) tax. The NYS Department of Labor uses these pooled funds to pay unemployment benefits. Your specific employer doesn't write you a check - it comes from the state fund that all employers contribute to.
0 coins
Aaliyah Jackson
•Oh that makes sense! So it's like insurance where everyone pays in but only some people use it. Thanks for explaining that clearly.
0 coins
Miguel Hernández
yeah my boss was complaining about his unemployment taxes going up after some people got laid off last year, so definitely the employers pay something
0 coins
Sasha Ivanov
The tax rate employers pay can vary based on their experience rating - companies with more unemployment claims may pay higher rates. It's calculated as a percentage of each employee's wages up to a certain limit. In NY, the taxable wage base changes each year. Employers also can't retaliate against you for filing an unemployment claim since they're required by law to pay these taxes.
0 coins
Liam Murphy
•Wait so if I file for unemployment my old employer's taxes might go up?? I don't want to hurt the small business I worked for
0 coins
Sasha Ivanov
•Don't worry about that - unemployment insurance exists specifically for this purpose. Your employer has been paying these taxes all along knowing that employees might need benefits. You earned this coverage through your work.
0 coins
Amara Okafor
I had trouble getting through to NYS Department of Labor when I had questions about this same thing last month. Kept getting busy signals and their online chat wasn't helpful. Finally used a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that got me connected to an actual agent who explained the whole funding system. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI showing how it works. Made the whole process way less stressful than trying to call myself.
0 coins
CaptainAwesome
•Never heard of that but might be worth trying if the regular phone lines are still jammed up
0 coins
Yuki Tanaka
This is exactly why the unemployment system is broken! Employers paying higher taxes just means they hire fewer people or pay us less. It's all connected and we're the ones who suffer in the end. I've been dealing with NYS Department of Labor for months and the whole thing is just bureaucratic nonsense designed to discourage people from claiming what they earned.
0 coins
CaptainAwesome
•I mean the system has problems but at least there IS unemployment insurance. My dad talks about how his generation didn't have these safety nets
0 coins
Zainab Omar
Just to add some specific numbers - in NY for 2024, employers pay SUI tax on the first $12,300 of each employee's wages. The tax rate ranges from 0.6% to 9.9% depending on the employer's experience rating. New employers typically start at around 4.1%. So for most employers it's a predictable business expense, not something that fluctuates wildly unless they have unusually high turnover or layoffs.
0 coins