New York to Overhaul Part-Time Unemployment Insurance Program

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a pair of bills to revamp the state’s unemployment system, increasing protections for part-time workers and ensuring they have access to insurance benefits.

The state’s current system discourages part-time work by reducing benefits by 25% for work performed on a single day, even if it’s only a few hours. This particularly deters workers from returning to part-time work for three days or more, according to the bill language.

Under the measures (S.1042A/A.2355A and S.7148/A.7959) signed Friday, the state will instead base unemployment benefits on a worker’s weekly earnings. The laws were modeled ...