U.S. Senator Gary Peters on Wednesday announced his “Covid-19 Heroes Fund” which would increase the pay of frontline workers by up to $25-thousand through the end of the year.
The funding proposed by Senator Peters would be part of the fourth legislative package intended to deal with the coronavirus crisis.
Healthcare, grocery, pharmacy, and postal workers would be among those to have their pay increased by $13 an hour from the start of the crisis until December of 2020.
Peters said there would also be a $15-thousand recruitment bonus for essential health and home care workers.
“Those are critically important jobs for dealing with the elderly and some of the most important people we have. We need to make sure those facilities are sufficiently staffed with people willing to care.”
Peters said in preliminary discussions with Republicans he’s hopeful the proposal will be incorporated into the next coronavirus package.
“They understand that these folks certainly deserve our praise. I’m hoping they realize that in addition to our praise they should be compensated for the risk they are putting themselves and their families in.”
Peters said congress is currently discussing what will be in the next coronavirus package. He said he’d like to see more funding put towards aiding small businesses.