Lawmakers in the Assembly are making an end-of-session effort to increase New York's short-term disability benefit that hasn't increased in 35 years.

A bill has bipartisan support to hike the state's Temporary Disability Insurance benefit, which has been capped at $170 per week since the program's inception in 1989. 

The proposal updates the payout for people who need to take time off for medical treatment, an illness or a non-work-related injury — giving workers 67% of their income, or around $1,170 per week, to be in line with the state's paid family leave.

"We know that $170 is not a realistic amount to live on a week," Assembly sponsor Michaelle Solages told Spectrum News 1. "We were just here yesterday with survivors of cancer who had to run up their credit card bills or borrow money from friends and family in order to survive."

State senators passed the bill to increase temporary disability payments back in March, but the Assembly has yet to follow suit because of concerns about the policy's impact on business.

Solages, who chairs the who chairs the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus, wants to expand the benefit to women who experience a stillbirth.

Time is running short for assemblymembers to pass it before they leave Albany on June 17, but Solages said there's hope.

"We're still working on it," she said Thursday. "We have several days, but there is a hesitancy to push it forward because it is a cost to the workers and the employers."

The Business Council of New York State and other business groups have led a strong campaign of opposition to the proposal — warning the current bill to raise the cap will increase the insurance premium employers pay by about 600%.

Employers would cover at least 60% of premium costs while employees pay the rest, and the change would be phased in over the next several years. 

"This insurance product, particularly, is for non-work-related injuries and illnesses, so it really has nothing to do with the workplace," said Ashley Ranslow, the state director of the National Federation of Independent Business. "All we know is that the premium is going to increase from $170 to almost $500 — that's a huge increase."

The increase would be implemented over a few years, but business owners are concerned it will be difficult to budget for and create uncertainty.

"The state allocated $8 billion...a substantial amount of money to pay off unemployment insurance debt as a way to provide relief to small business owners, and then you want to turn around and increase costs in a separate area," Ranslow said. "It undoes everything that you fought for in the budget process."

But employers completely cover the cost of temporary disability and paid family leave in several other states, including neighboring Massachusetts and New Jersey.

Jesse Workman, attorney with advocacy group A Better Balance, said the proposed 60-40 cost share with employers and workers is a fair compromise, and increasing the cap will support, and not cripple, small businesses.

"It allows small businesses to offer the same competitive benefits that larger businesses can offer," Workman said Thursday. "It also allows workers to be able to take care of their own health, which ties people to the workforce, and people return to work sooner."

Solages argues it's expensive for businesses to have sick employees that cannot afford to take care of themselves and to be forced to replace them.

She's pressuring Assembly leadership to reach a compromise to make this the year that the measure lands on Gov. Kathy Hochul's desk.

"There's conversations going on, but at the end of the day, I just want everyone to get together and just figure out how we can get it done," Solages said. "And so we're pushing for it, we're trying to be creative."

Hochul and legislative leaders have publicly backed raising the state's short-term disability payments. The governor included the proposal in her executive budget proposal last year. Labor unions, business leaders and the Legislature worked on a compromise for weeks, but it fell out of the final budget at the eleventh hour over disagreements about how to split the premium costs, and a push from Hochul to reduce the benefit to 20% of a worker's average weekly wage for the second half of the 26-week program.