Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began back in March, the focus by State and Federal leaders have landed mainly on those who lost their jobs due to businesses being forced to close.
While taking care of those affected by these closures is very important, those who continued to work throughout the pandemic are beginning to feel left behind. Many of these “essential workers” have taken to Facebook and Twitter to voice their displeasure that they have not received any financial compensation, despite working to help keep not only the economy and their personal finances in order, but to also support everyone else.
We spoke with State Senator Andre Jacque, who said that even though the State has a fair amount COVID-19 Relief funding available, there is a dark cloud looming ahead financially. Jacque said, “One of the big issues we have right now as a state, is that we have to keep our books in balance. We’ve done that, expect now we are expecting a rather significant deficit coming down the road, roughly $2 billion. It’s kind of the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about.”
As for how that affects those “essential workers”, Jacque explained, “If we are talking about being able to provide additional supplements, certainly there is some of that CARES Act money that they Governor has discretion over, but the reality is we are looking a pretty significant budget deficit. The longer it takes us to get our arms around that…I think we need to start locking people in a room with pizza and root beer, and figure our way out of our mismatch with the budget and expenditures.“
One major complaint from “essential workers” is the fact that a lot of people have been making more money sitting at home on unemployment than they were actually working. Senator Glen Grothman spoke with SeehaferNews.com about that, voicing his continued opposition. “I think the major thing will be to make sure as many businesses stay open as possible,” Grothman said. “I don’t think you are going to have this continuation where people are making more money not working…I have been very critical of that.”
Based on our conversations with the two local leaders in State and Federal Government, it does not appear that any legislation is being worked on at this time to financially compensate workers who have helped keep their local communities afloat.
