Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul and Labor Leaders Announce Maximum Weekly Benefit Increase for Unemployed Workers

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul and labor leaders today announced the maximum weekly unemployment insurance (UI) benefit increase for unemployed workers across the state. As part of the Governor's FY26 Enacted Budget, the State invested nearly $7 billion to pay off the federal UI Trust Fund loan, and bring the fund to solvency and increase the maximum weekly benefit from $504 to $869. The increase in UI benefits comes at the same time as the GOP federal shutdown impacts 115,000 federal employees in New York, leaving them without paychecks.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 First of all, to the men and women of labor, I salute you every day of the week for putting your hearts and souls on the line to make our state so fabulous. So, a round of applause to all of you in the audience - thank you, thank you, thank you.

And I know many of our elected officials have been recognized here today - keep enjoying the summer, the fall because we're back in Albany before you know it. We've got a lot of work to do, a lot of challenges to meet and to solve. We have our spectacular Commissioner of Labor, Roberta Reardon - give her a huge round of applause. And you heard Mario Cilento, the head of the AFL-CIO is right here in person - the one and only. Rich Maroko, HTC President; HTC in the house. Gary LaBarbera, the head of the Building Trades Council. And Wayne Spence, our PEF President, and other laborers who've been recognized.

Listen, folks, I'm just going to tell it to you straight, okay? What is happening in our nation's capital is having a profound effect on people's lives in our own state. Let me give you a few examples. Just go back to when all those tariffs started - and remember, "tariff" means "tax;" it's an additional tax on everybody's products and on our businesses. We're starting to see companies shutting down or laying off people in manufacturing, and in hospitality and in small communities all across the state, but particularly along the Canadian border, because guess what? The Canadians still aren't really happy with us.

I was just up in Québec trying to reset relationships because we have an incredible synergy across the border, especially for our northern counties. So that's having an effect on tourism and trade up in that area, so people are going to start losing their jobs and some already have - that's number one, the tariff effect.

Number two: The cuts that we're seeing in health care, people losing their premiums. Now, you know what this means? Let me just put this in context for you - what this fight in Washington is about as we speak; why our leaders, our Democratic leaders, are standing firm because they're trying to eliminate the Affordable Care Act subsidies, okay? Some people don't even know they're getting them. Let me lay this out. If your family is making $88,000 a year - right now, you're probably paying about $8,000 in health care premiums because they're subsidized, because insurance is so expensive. But when these subsidies are eliminated - and they will be if we don't win our fight - that cost will go up to $24,000 a year per family. Factor that into your budgeting at the end of the month.

Plus the cuts to Medicaid. I sounded this alarm months ago. We are going to lose hospitals, particularly in rural areas. They're already on the brink right now, barely hanging on. But we lose Medicaid coverage for people, hospitals will close and there's a projection of over 62,000 health care workers (who) could lose their jobs all through the whole ecosystem of a hospital - process that. We lose jobs because of the tariffs, the lack of tourism, the health care cuts, and guess what's happening to our friends who are federal workers? We have 115,000 federal workers in the State of New York - we're proud to have them - they're being told now by the President, in violation of law, that, "We may not call you back and we may not give you back pay."

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You can "boo" that even louder because that's really bad.

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So what we're facing is the fact that since Donald Trump became President, that we're going to have an impact on people's jobs. And I didn't even mention - Gary's behind me - 15,000 good paying union jobs are on hold right now because of the Gateway Tunnel and the Second Avenue Subway being told, "We're not going forward." So, process that one.

And even offshore wind and solar, our renewable energy fight, those are all good paying union jobs. And I was able to save the ones with offshore wind on Long Island, that was 1,500 jobs, but, my friends, add it all up - we're talking about a lot of jobs, union and non-union jobs that are on the line. So this is a scary time for New Yorkers. There's already a lot of stress, a lot of stress on our families. And working with our Legislature - and I want to thank our Leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and our Speaker, Carl Heastie, and all the members of Legislature for fighting hard with us this last session to make affordability the centerpiece of our accomplishments.

And I'll tick them off again because I am so damn proud of these. Right now, inflation rebate checks are hitting the mailboxes, October and November. That's over $400 for many families to help pay their bills. And if you talk to anybody who gets that check, you are going to see a big smile on their faces - they're happy to get that. Increasing the child tax credit that was $0 for children newborn to four year olds. It was $0 when I first became Governor. We worked hard and now parents will get $1,000 for babies, little toddlers; $500 for the older children. We're picking up the full cost of school breakfast and lunches - you know what that adds up to?

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You're happy because you don't have to make the lunches anymore, right? I had someone walk up to me on the street the other day.

This man, he goes, "You just gave me an hour back in my day."

I said, "What are you talking about?"

I'm thinking maybe the subway rides are going faster, you know? There's something. What is this?

He said, "I used to have to get my kids up, get them to eat breakfast. They didn't want to sit still. I had to make breakfast, feed the kids, then I had to push that over there, and then make the lunches and go shopping for all the groceries." He says, "You gave me an hour back a day."

An average of $1,600 per child per year that you're not spending, that's money back in people's pockets. And the largest middle class tax rate cut in 70 years - we got that done as well. So that all adds up to about $5,000 back in New Yorkers' pockets - really proud of that. We worked hard. It's good.

So, we're doing this over here. You have tariffs that are going to increase family's costs by an average of $5,000 to $7,000 a year, so that's basically taken away. Everything from backpacks to sneakers - and you know I'm a fan of sneakers - for kids that are growing up. Holiday gifts coming up - I'd shop right now because who knows what's going to be on the shelves in a few months with all these tariffs.

So a family that's under this stress and the primary breadwinner loses their job for all the reasons I gave and other factors as well, they lose their job. Up until October 6, that family could only look forward to $504 per week to support the family - that's not going to pay those bills. It's not going to add up. Utilities are going up, prescription costs are going up, health care is going up, everything is going up, the groceries - and we said, "No more. No more." And the reason we couldn't do it earlier, and our leaders know this, and Rich Maroko was in my ear for years on this one.

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And Mario said we have got to get this done, and Gary, and Wayne and all of our other leaders - they said, the challenge is because during the pandemic, we had to borrow a lot of money to cover unemployment insurance. Roberta Reardon probably still has PTSD from - I worked closely with you during that crisis because we had millions of New Yorkers who needed unemployment benefits that they never dreamed they'd be asking for, never thought they'd be out of a job. But no one foresaw a global pandemic, and the epicenter was our own city and our own state.

So we had a big deficit. In order to be able to ever increase how much we could pay people for unemployment, to increase those weekly benefits, we had to pay off that huge debt - and I'm saying huge, it was $7 billion. But we made the determination we can pay that off and take that burden also off our businesses - I'll tell you, the businesses are very grateful because they were having to pay this back - but also give us the ability to pay that off.

And now to be able to increase that amount of money for the first time in years - from $504 to $869, that's $1,500 more a month, $1,500 more a month, $3,500 if you're unemployed, and we got that done. So yes, we did.

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So we can take care of New York. We'll keep fighting back against Washington. But as long as I have the union support for initiatives like this - thank you, union members - and a Legislature, our Senators, our Assemblymembers who support this, we're going to continue fighting for New York.

You can take that to the bank because we have a lot on our plate. New Yorkers are counting on us to stand up, and be their voice and know that we'll protect them every step of the way. So with that, ladies and gentlemen, let me present the microphone to our Leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

Contact the Governor's Press Office