Student Project: Examining Worker Misclassification in New York State’s Unemployment Insurance System (Video)

This video, created by ILR School students Riley Xian and Jenna Lea, examines worker misclassification in New York State’s unemployment insurance (UI) system. Employees treated by their employers as independent contractors, often in violation of the law, struggle to receive benefits. This enables their employers to avoid paying state UI taxes, which drives up taxes for other employers. 

Legislation has been proposed that would require employers to report the wages of their workers, making it easier for their workers to demonstrate a work history and eligibility for benefits. In 2025, the bill numbers for this proposed legislation are A05726 / S04477-A.

This video includes interviews with two workers who struggled with this problem:

• Raju Ahamed, an immigrant to the United States, worked as a GrubHub delivery driver and a server in a restaurant before getting injured in a bicycling accident during one of his deliveries. Because his employers had not classified him as an employee, New York State had no record of his earnings to evaluate the eligibility of unemployment insurance claims. After being told he was ineligible for unemployment insurance, he called the Department of Labor every day for at least a month. Eventually he was considered eligible for benefits on the basis of the records he kept, but he was the only worker at the restaurant to get unemployment benefits when it shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 
• Jennie Chenkin worked in a temporary position at a small nonprofit, overseeing the distribution of harm reduction supplies like Narcan, which is used to prevent opioid overdoses. When the temporary position ended, Chenkin applied for benefits and was told that they were ineligible due to adequate wages. Chenkin’s employer had classified many of their temporary employees as independent contractors and had not reported their wages. It took Chenkin over five months of submitting documents, following up with the DOL and waiting before they were finally approved to receive benefits.

The video ends with a statement by Bharavai Desai, the Executive Director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, many of whose members driving for ridesharing apps have similarly been misclassified as independent contractors. Desai argues that the law should cover all employers, and that workers denied benefits deserve to be compensated. 

Riley Xian (Class of 2025) and Jenna Lea (Class of 2026) are two students working with the ILR School's Ithaca Co-Lab. They got involved with making videos as part of the engaged learning option of the class, “The fight against unemployment,” taught by Ian Greer, research professor and director of the Ithaca Co-Lab. This project combines the ILR School’s commitment to providing students with engaged and experiential learning opportunities with the outreach mission of informing the public on labor policy issues in New York State.