Long-term Care Providers Justify Extra Pay

The Frontline Workers Pay Working Group called upon long-term care providers Tuesday, August 3, to underscore their efforts in caring for nursing home and assisted living residents during the pandemic. The working group is charged with determining which workers should be eligible to receive bonus payments as a result of working under COVID-19 conditions.

Erin Hilligan, Vice President of Operations at Ebenezer Care Center, provided a perspective of the uncertainty and long hours the workers confronted. "People worked double shifts, as many shifts as they needed to, and everybody's hands-on-deck. Everybody helped with garbage, everybody helped with supplies, everybody helped deliver, everybody, everybody helped, because we didn't know how many pairs of hands we would have," she said.

Kari Thurlow, Senior Vice President of Advocacy at LeadingAge Minnesota, provided policymakers with an example: a benchmark of $1,500--based upon the average pay for fulltime work--would cost about $96 million and cover 38,000 nursing home employees and 41,500 assisted living employees.

The legislature approved $250 million during the first special session for additional pay. The working group will review other industries in the coming weeks.