New York City will push for unemployment benefits for freelancers

New York City will push for a federal unemployment benefit for freelancers and ask the state for a reduction in the unincorporated business tax, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a speech to the Economic Club of New York.

The most-populous U.S. city will work with the Freelancers Union, a group founded in 2003 to offer health-care coverage and other benefits to independent workers, to draft a proposal for a federal unemployment benefit, Bloomberg said today.

“One way this could work is to create a fund that workers would contribute to and that would also offer freelancers some level of tax benefits,” the mayor, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP, said in his remarks.

The city will also push legislators in Albany to reduce or eliminate a levy that “double-taxes” independent contractors and sole proprietors, offering tax relief for 17,000 businesses, Bloomberg said.