The plan prioritizes healthcare workers and first responders who willingly entered COVID situations and kept people safe during the pandemic.  

Republican members of the Frontline Workers Bonus Pay Working Group today proposed a plan to provide meaningful bonuses to those who took the most risk to keep people safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposal includes $1,200 in bonus pay for healthcare workers, first responders, corrections officers, long-term care workers, and hospice providers. 

Earlier this year, the legislature approved $250 million in funding and directed a bipartisan working group to come with a plan to determine the eligibility requirements for the bonuses. This plan prioritizes the healthcare workers who cared for patients, first responders who doubled down on an already risky job, and hospice staff who cared for Minnesotans when they were forced to be separated from their loved ones.

“We owe these frontline workers a huge debt of gratitude for their dedicated and tireless efforts to help keep Minnesotans safe during the most challenging stages of the pandemic,” said Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller (R-Winona). “We will keep working with Governor Walz and colleagues in both the House and the Senate to reach an agreement that gets this bonus pay into the pockets of these workers as quickly as possible.”

To be eligible, the workers couldn’t work from home, need to have received less than one month of unemployment, and worked a minimum of 1200 hours between March and December of 2020, about 30 hours a week. There is no income cap on the proposal and an application process will be used to provide bonus pay as soon as the application is approved.   

The working group met eight times and heard from dozens of testifiers across many professions affected by COVID. The working group discussed at length the merits of each profession and what amount of bonus pay would be impactful to the recipients.