{"id":138957,"date":"2026-02-19T17:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/138957\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T17:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:51:09","slug":"trapped-at-work-act-amended-in-new-york-effective-date-delayed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/138957\/","title":{"rendered":"Trapped At Work Act Amended in New York, Effective Date Delayed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Governor Kathy Hochul has signed into law a bill amending New York State\u2019s \u201cstay or pay\u201d law. Among key changes, the law\u2019s enforcement date has been delayed by one year.<\/p>\n

As we previously reported<\/a>, on December 19, 2025, Governor Hochul signed into law the Trapped at Work Act which prohibits employers from requiring as a condition of employment that any current or prospective worker execute \u201cany instrument, agreement, or contract provision that requires a worker to pay the employer, or the employer\u2019s agent or assignee, a sum of money if the worker leaves such employment before the passage of a stated period of time,\u201d including any provision stating that such repayment \u201cconstitutes reimbursement for training provided to the worker by the employer or by a third party.\u201d The Act as originally drafted contained certain exclusions; however, Governor Hochul raised concerns about ambiguities in the original Act thus spurring prompt amendment of the original law. The original Act also provided that it was effective immediately.<\/p>\n

Under\u00a0the Act as now amended<\/a>, the Act will expressly carve out any agreement that \u201crequires the employee to reimburse the employer for the cost of tuition, fees, and required educational materials for a transferable credential\u201d where the agreement:<\/p>\n

is set forth in a written contract that is offered separately from any contract for employment;
\ndoes not require the employee to obtain the transferable credential as a condition of employment;
\nspecifies the repayment amount before the employee agrees to the contract, and the repayment amount does not exceed the cost to the employer of the tuition, fees, and required educational materials;
\nprovides for prorated repayment during the repayment period proportional to the total repayment amount and does not require an accelerated payment schedule if the employee separates from the employment; and
\ndoes not require repayment if the employee is terminated, unless terminated for misconduct.<\/p>\n

The amendments define a \u201ctransferable credential\u201d as a degree, license, certificate, etc. that evidences skills or proficiency that is relevant to employers generally throughout an industry and would distinguish it from both: (a) training that is employer-specific (such as training on an employer\u2019s proprietary systems or processes or other instruction that does not qualify an employee for a new title, classification, credential, etc.); and (b) training that is mandated by federal, state or local law.<\/p>\n

Notable for employers that offer signing bonuses, retention bonuses, and the like,\u00a0the amended Act will now also specifically carve out any agreement requiring an employee to \u201crepay a financial bonus, relocation assistance, or other non-educational incentive or other payment or benefit that is not tied to specific job performance, unless the employee was terminated for any reason other than misconduct or the duties or requirements of the job were misrepresented to the employee.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Further, the amendments limit the scope of covered individuals under the Act from the previous \u201cworker\u201d (which would have included not only employees but also independent contractors, interns, externs, and volunteers) to only \u201cemployee,\u201d defined as \u201cany person employed for hire by an employer in any employment.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

As noted above, the amendments revise the effective date of the Act to \u201cone year after it shall have become a law.\u201d There is some ambiguity, however, as to whether this means one year after the signing date of the original Act (December 19, 2025) or one year after the signing of the amendments to the Act (February 13, 2026).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Governor Kathy Hochul has signed into law a bill amending New York State\u2019s \u201cstay or pay\u201d law. Among…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-138957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-headlines","10":"tag-new-york-news","11":"tag-new-york-state","12":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}