Gov. Tom Wolf urged the legislature Thursday to allocate an additional $225 million to the Hazard Pay Program, which offers temporary pay increases for frontline workers during the covid-19 pandemic.
Wolf announced the first wave of Hazard Pay Program funding in July. The program distributed $50 million in hazard pay to workers in security, food service, grocery stores, health care, and other essential businesses.
But the money was quickly exhausted, Wolf said.
“The program was in high demand from day one,” Wolf said. “We got more than 10,000 applications. In the end, 639 employers were awarded the $50 million.”
The program provides $3 per hour pay increases for essential workers for a span of 10 weeks.
Wolf is now urging the General Assembly to allocate another $225 million to the program. That would provide enough funding to offer the $3 per hour pay increase for 208,000 frontline workers, Wolf said.
This money would come from CARES Act funding, he said.
“The covid-19 pandemic has brought many structures of our society into sharp relief,” Wolf said. “We’ve all been shown just how vital certain services that we’ve always taken for granted can actually be.”
Wolf said this pay raise would signify the commonwealth’s gratitude to these workers.
“They’ve kept us safe,” he said. “Now we need to compensate them for the risks they’ve taken for us.”
State Rep. Patty Kim, D-Dauphin, joined Wolf in calling for the extra funding.
“It’s always good to say thank you and show our appreciation to these workers, but we can do more. We can compensate them,” Kim said.
