State and Federal Update: July 14, 2025

Federal Updates

Federal Budget Passes

On July 4, President Trump signed the FY26 budget plan into law, a day after Vice-President Vance cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass it. As we have noted in past updates, the measure includes roughly $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, with the largest breaks going to businesses and wealthy households. The legislation allocates hundreds of billions of dollars for border and immigration enforcement, toward the administration’s stated goal to deport one million people per year, as well as new defense spending. 

While the budget is projected to significantly increase the national debt, its tax cuts and new expenditures are partially offset by very large reductions to social assistance programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as well as investments in clean energy. Indeed, these cuts have been the focus of most criticism, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that 11.8 million more Americans will have no health insurance by 2034, and 3 million more will lose SNAP eligibility. In New York, the Hochul administration estimates that 1.5 million New Yorkers will lose health coverage as a result of this law, with an overall fiscal impact on New York’s health care system of nearly $13 billion per year. Additionally, 300,000 households are projected to lose some or all of their SNAP assistance. 

NYATEP will be watching carefully as the effects of this bill unfold over the coming months and beyond. Many of the most significant cuts do not go into effect for a year or longer, though employers and state and local governments will begin to act much sooner in response to the bill’s anticipated effects. We would love to hear from members about their plans, concerns, and questions in response to the bill. Please email interim executive director David Fischer at [email protected]. 

Short Term Pell is Here

Overall, it would be difficult to characterize the new budget law as good for workforce development. As the National Skills Coalition notes, its effects include reduced access to education and training, cuts to safety net programs that help enable people to access training employment, and elimination of billions in job-creating clean energy investments and incentives. It does, however, include one measure that the field has long wished to see: a expansion of Pell Grant eligibility to cover training programs of shorter duration (150-599 hours), so long as they meet certain criteria regarding quality and outcomes. This change holds potential to unlock substantial new resources in support of job training and industry credential attainment. 

It seems likely that states will have broad discretion in setting policy for short-term Pell, with governors approving eligible courses and state education departments likely responsible for oversight. Short-term Pell dollars will begin to flow at the start of the next fiscal year: July 1, 2026. New York’s relatively recent approval of “Workforce TAP”—extending the state’s Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) to part-time students enrolled in qualifying credential programs at participating SUNY and CUNY colleges—might help speed up implementation in the state. NYATEP will continue to monitor this potentially significant shift and support members and the field as they determine how it might impact their work. 

Workforce Reauthorization Back on the Table? 

Last week, the US Workforce Association, of which NYATEP is a member, sent representatives to Washington, D.C. for meetings with members of Congress. Although discussions largely concerned federal appropriations, the process for which will unfold now that the overall budget is in place, the subject of workforce reauthorization came up as well. Reports are that both the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, chaired by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), and the Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions), chaired by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), are warming toward the idea of revisiting workforce reauthorization. 

It is likely that the starting point for any discussions, particularly on the House side, would be the A Stronger Workforce for America Act (ASWA), agreed to last December but stripped out of the final Continuing Resolution for last year’s budget. The product of painstaking negotiations conducted over years, in many respects, ASWA offers a mixed bag for workforce policymakers. The alternative, however, might well be the Trump administration’s proposal to combine 13 workforce programs into one block grant, called “Make America Skilled Again,” which as proposed by the administration would additionally cut funding by nearly 50 percent. 

The next milestone should come within the next couple weeks, as we reach the deadline for the review of federal workforce development programming called for in the president’s April Executive Order on workforce. Congressional Republicans are likely to take their cue from the administration’s findings. As always, NYATEP will continue to follow developments and share with our members and the broader community as events unfold. 

State Updates

Legislative session in review

New York’s 2025 Legislative Session ended last month, with the state Senate concluding its business on Friday, June 13 and the Assembly wrapping up on June 17. The delay in finalizing the state budget pushed the session further into June than had been anticipated. 

Overall, 856 bills passed both Houses during the 2025 Session. If the governor neither signs nor vetoes a bill, it does not become law. Governor Kathy Hochul has already acted on 156 of them. Currently, there are over 650 bills waiting for action by the Governor. Some of those notable bills include legislation as follows (NYATEP Legislative Priorities are in bold): 

• Establishes a fiscal cliff task force to conduct a study on fiscal cliffs in the state's public assistance programs and to make recommendations 
• Establishes the "recovery ready workplace act"
• Enact the FAIR Business Practices Act, which would expand the ability of the Attorney General to enforce consumer protection laws. The version of this legislation that passed is stripped back from the original proposal, as the private right of action provisions were removed before its passage in the Senate last week;

• Enact the “Medical Aid in Dying Act;”

• Require safety reports for powerful frontier artificial intelligence models in order to limit critical harm;

• Enact the “Trapped at Work Act,” which would prohibit the use of employment promissory notes; and 
• Establish a task force to promote the employment of people with disabilities by state agencies.

The governor has until December 31 to sign or veto bills that have passed both Houses. NYATEP will continue to track the progress of these measures. 

NYATEP will continue to monitor events as they unfold and share details to our members as soon as possible. If you have an immediate questions or concerns, please contact David Fischer, Interim Executive Director, at [email protected].