ALBANY, N.Y. — The new year will include increased workers’ compensation and paid family leave benefits for workers, along with some “savings for businesses.”
Effective Jan. 1, 2025, the minimum weekly benefit for workers’ compensation and the maximum weekly benefit for paid family leave will both go up, while the workers’-compensation assessment rate for employers drops, the office of Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday.
Paid family leave
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New York’s paid family leave provides eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of job-protected, paid time off to bond with a new child, care for a family member with a serious health condition, or to help loved ones when a family member is deployed abroad on active military service, per Hochul’s office.
Starting Jan. 1, 2025, New Yorkers taking paid family leave may receive up to $14,127.84 in total benefits, representing an increase of over $300 from 2024. Employees taking paid family leave receive 67 percent of their average weekly wage, up to a cap of 67 percent of the current New York State Average Weekly Wage (NYSAWW), which is $1,757.19 for 2025.
This means the maximum weekly benefit will be $1,177.32, and the total possible benefit to an employee is $14,127.84.
Employees will contribute 0.388 percent of their gross wages per pay period to pay for paid family leave in 2025, with a maximum annual contribution of $354.53 (0.388 percent of the NYSAWW). Employees earning less than the NYSAWW will contribute less than the annual cap of $354.53, consistent with their actual wages.
Workers’ compensation
The state’s workers’-compensation system provides financial and medical benefits for workers who are injured or become ill as a result of their jobs, while “protecting employers from costly lawsuits,” Hochul’s office said. Employers pay an annual assessment to the operating system.
Starting Jan. 1, 2025, the minimum workers’ compensation weekly benefit will increase to $325 per week, in accordance with a bill that Hochul signed in September 2023. That’s up from $275 per week in 2024.
Prior to January 1, 2024, the minimum weekly benefit had been $150 per week for more than a decade, Hochul’s office noted.
Savings for businesses
Additionally, as of Jan. 1, 2025, the workers’-compensation assessment rate for employers will be 7.1 percent of the standard premium or premium equivalent — representing a 22 percent decrease from 2024 — which is expected to save New York State businesses about $191 million.
The employer-assessment rates are determined by the New York State Workers’-Compensation Board’s need and budgeted statewide premium, per Hochul’s office. The rate is calculated by dividing the board’s total estimated annual expenses by a base of total estimated statewide premium. Insurers are required to apply the assessment rate to their premium or premium equivalent.
