HUGE INCREASE: Yonkers Small Business Owners Face Looming Hikes On Unemployment Premiums – By Brian Harrod

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Yonkers small business owners have endured quite an ordeal over the past 13 months thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought about emergency regulations that either closed or restricted their operations and forced them to lay off workers.

YONKERS: Now, as the pandemic appears to be waning in the city of hills, many of them received yet another unpleasant surprise: a substantial increase in their unemployment premiums.

This came despite Yonkers’ Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins passing legislation aimed to keep COVID-related closures from impacting a business owner’s rating, which factors into their premium amounts.

The unexpected increases prompted New York State Restaurant Association (NYSRA) President Melissa Fleischut to send a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader #AndreaStewartCousins, D-Yonkers, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D- #Bronx, on Monday to say the organization was “taken aback” by the increases even after Senate Bill 1197 and Assembly Bill 2001-A became law.

While the legislation in question did keep COVID-19-related unemployment from factoring into the equation, it did not, however, keep the state from raising rates to keep the fund from running out of money. The state borrowed more than $10 billion to help make unemployment payments last year.

In a press statement the #NewYork State Department of Labor (DOL) said it understands businesses need support at this time. It said the state has taken other measures to help restaurants and other businesses.

Among the programs for restaurants are a $25 million grant program created to help dining establishments that serve distressed and underrepresented areas and a $35 million return-to-work tax credit program.

Small businesses across the board, including for-profit arts and cultural institutions, can seek grants from an $800 million recovery program.

Businesses in #NewYorkState have access to an estimated $57 billion in federal support through the Paycheck Protection Program, the FY 2022 Budget is providing $1 billion in support for businesses, and the state worked with the private sector to provide a $100 million loan fund for small businesses,” the DOL said in the statement.

Some Yonkers Business owners are calling on the DOL to crack down on #fraudulent claims that countless #NewYorkers have had their identities compromised and used to file bogus claims.

With wide-scale #fraud happening, they say, the state shouldn’t put an undue burden on businesses trying to recover from the past year.

There are actually small businesses in Yonkers who did not lay off any employees in the past year and have been shocked to receive unemployment insurance tax bills that have more than doubled.