New York's A9581, paired with its Senate twin S8706, passed both chambers of the state legislature and awaits Governor Kathy Hochul's signature1. The bill would require firms with more than 50 employees to file an annual report on how AI affects their hiring. The Assembly had already passed A9581 alone on 3 June; the Senate vote is the new step that puts the measure on the governor's desk.
The design answers a specific failure. New York's updated WARN Act, the layoff-notification law, became the world's first to require disclosure of AI's role in mass layoffs, and in its first year produced zero attributions from 162 companies covering 28,300 workers. A notice-only law gave firms no reason to attribute, so none did. An annual mandatory report shifts the default from voluntary disclosure to compelled filing, which is why the reporting trigger matters more than the headline.
California advanced three bills in the same week. SB 951, which would require 90-day notice of technological displacement, cleared its Senate labour committee 5-0 on Wednesday 10 June and heads to the Assembly, having already passed the full Senate 28-9 on 6 June. SB 947, the No Robo Bosses Act on automated decision systems, is working through Assembly amendments, and AB 2545, a worker-impact data assessment, reached Senate committee after passing the Assembly on 21 May2. Colorado's signing of SB 26-189 had already shown state momentum was real.
The state channel is filling a federal vacuum. Senators Mark Warner and Mike Rounds have a disclosure bill, S.3339, endorsed by Microsoft and Google, but it has not moved in Congress. A patchwork of state thresholds raises multi-state compliance cost for large employers, yet if New York and California collect the data, those filings could become the de facto national evidence base that Washington has so far failed to assemble.
