In late April this year, Gov. Tim Walz passed the Frontline Worker pay program. This program shows appreciation and gives compensation toward Minnesotans who worked throughout the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. Minnesotans were able to begin applying for this program on June 8 and the deadline is July 22.
‘Hero pay’, as some are calling it, splits up a state funded $500 million between all those who are qualified and apply. To qualify, workers must have worked at least 120 hours sometime between March 15, 2020 to June 30, 2021, in industries such as healthcare, retail, education, food and others. They also must have worked in close proximity (less than 6 feet) with others, did not have the option to telecommute, meet income limits and not have received unemployment payments for more than 20 weeks in a row.
Those who applied had to supply information such as their address, Social Security number, contact information for their employer during the pandemic and bank information in case they qualify. The anticipated amount of those to apply is 660,000 workers which would mean each could receive $750.
Employers of frontline workers were required to notify their employees of these benefits. In addition to this, employers may be contacted at random (when the state sees fit) to verify whether the information the employee provided is accurate or not. The information that will need to be verified will be along the lines of what the workers provided in their application.
This initiative is necessary to show hard-working Minnesotans some appreciation for continuing to go to work despite what was happening around the world in the majority of 2020. In a time of such confusion, these individuals kept industries afloat and continued to serve those who had to stay in their homes to keep their families and loved ones safe.
In just the healthcare industry, nurses and doctors had to help fight the COVID-19 virus and continue to try to help those when they themselves maybe didn’t know how to stop it. Beyond that, at the beginning, there was no vaccine yet and that left many unanswered questions for many scared Minnesotans. Many of these workers even experienced burn-out or declined mental health because of the sheer amount of patients and minimal amounts of workers to distribute the workload.
While working in retail during a non-pandemic is hard, imagine dealing with scared customers who can’t even find their essential items because companies weren’t able to continue manufacturing and other customers got greedy and overbought to stock up.
In the midst of the nationwide shut down these essential and frontline workers put their worries aside and did their best day by day. Hero pay is like a big huge thank you to them for being brave and keeping Minnesota working as best they could.
