The proposal builds on a similar suggestion from Sen. On April 7, Senate Democrats introduced a proposal calling for the next stimulus bill to include a COVID-19 “ Heroes Fund,” through which the federal government would finance “premium pay” of an additional $25,000 (or roughly an additional $13 per hour) for essential frontline workers. “We are the ones that will be exposed faster than anybody else.” Who should get hazard pay, and how much?įortunately, a growing number of policymakers are championing hazard pay. “They should give us extra compensation because we are the ones taking the risk,” said Hopps. The low wage Hopps earns for her essential work is the reason she lives with relatives across three generations-and why she cannot afford to safely social distance from them. “If I contract it, I live with my son, my daughter, and my granddaughter. “I’m petrified, to be honest,” she told me. Sabrina Hopps, a 46-year-old housekeeping aid in an acute care facility in Washington, D.C., worries constantly about the risks her job poses to her family as she cleans the rooms of vulnerable residents. Nearly every frontline worker I interviewed said they feared exposing their loved ones to the virus. With little financial security, many workers I interviewed feel like they have no choice but to continue working, and the sudden hazards of their jobs were top of mind. “They don’t see the panic on people’s faces.” “I think some pay increase would be wonderful because I don’t think they understand the toll that comes through in our lives,” said Courtney Meadows, a 37-year-old grocery cashier in Beckley, W.Va. Workers need hazard payįrom doctors to delivery drivers to grocery and gig workers, the pandemic’s new class of essential workers have begun voicing their desire for hazard pay. We owe them urgent policy change to ensure they earn federally mandated hazard pay, on top of stringent safety measures and life-saving personal protective equipment (PPE) to shield them from the coronavirus. The extreme sacrifices we are asking frontline workers to take require an immediate response to recognize the risks they are facing simply by showing up to do jobs like ringing up groceries, cleaning hospital rooms, driving buses and ambulances, and treating critically ill patients. It is long past time that low-wage workers secure a permanent income boost and earn a living wage with adequate benefits. Like millions of hourly workers across the country, Beatty is risking her life and the health of her family to perform a job now deemed “essential” for society-and is barely surviving herself.ĬOVID-19 has laid bare the enormous gap between the value that frontline workers like Beatty bring to society and the low wages-and lack of respect-many earn in return. I put my life on the line for $11, $12 an hour, just to survive.” I have been working in this field for 35-some years. It isn’t for the money, because what I get paid is never enough. “Our family is saying, ‘Momma, I don’t want you to go out there.’ But this is my job. “Now I am the head of everything,” she told me. Recently, two of her children were laid off due to the crisis. With “a little, bitty check” from her work at the front line of COVID-19 pandemic caring for elderly and immunocompromised residents, Beatty is currently the sole provider for her family of seven. 》 Explore the COVID-19 frontline heroes series: Grocery workers “We are tired,” said Yvette Beatty, a 60-year-old home health worker at an assisted living center in Philadelphia.
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