When the Minnesota Legislature finally agreed to a front line worker bonus pay plan, lawmakers anticipated 667,000 workers would be eligible for slices of the $500 million pool of money. The individual checks were anticipated to total about $750. Now the only number that will for sure not change is the $500 million bonus pool.
Gov. Tim Walz announced Wednesday that over 901,000 Minnesotan have applied. Walz encouraged workers to keep applying even though payments could drop from the estimated $750 to about $500 or less.
There are about 20 job categories that qualify for bonus pay, including maintenance, janitorial, security, child care, nursing home and retail workers, public transit, health care workers and many others. Within those categories, there are also income thresholds and requirements that recipients had to report to work in person.
Online applications will be accepted until 5pm on July 22. Then the state will begin notifying workers if they’ve been accepted for payment or denied. Then there will be a 15 day period during which workers can appeal their denial. So it will be several weeks before state officials reveal the total number of eligible workers and how much money they’ll receive.