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Minnesota officials are debating how to divvy up $250 million in aid for essential workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their challenge is figuring out exactly who will get a check — and how much each worker will get.
At the height of the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans still showed up to work in person, including teachers, hospital staff, grocery store workers, servers and janitors.
"We could give $50 to everybody in the whole state, but that isn't substantial enough to really reward those that were on the front lines," said Sen. Karin Housley, R-Stillwater, a member of a working group that met for the first time Wednesday to recommend how to allocate the money. "Two hundred and fifty million dollars is not a lot when you have this many sectors."