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A largely overlooked provision included in the state budget could have big impacts on the state’s farm owners and farm workers. As initially proposed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in her executive budget, New York will soon offer farmers a tax credit to help them afford newly required overtime pay for their workers. But while the subsidy has farm worker advocates saying it paves the way for lowering the overtime threshold, members of the agriculture industry say it's still not sufficient.
Under a 2019 law that passed after years of advocacy, the state set first-time overtime provisions for farm workers, as well as other labor protections afforded in other industries. At the time, that meant a 60-hour work week, with anything over that deemed as overtime eligible. Farmers and members of the agriculture industry lobbied against the law, saying that it would force them to cut hours, thus driving workers out of state.
To help pay for the new overtime requirements, Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed implementing a tax credit for farmers so that the state could subsidize part of the cost. Tucked within thousands of pages of budget language and overshadowed by other controversial issues that dominated budget discussion is a version of that tax credit, offering farmers a way to adhere to the new law without...
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