Minnesota lawmakers pass 13-week unemployment extension, business relief
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - Minnesota lawmakers struck a deal Monday to throw a lifeline to laid-off workers and struggling businesses through the financial strain of the coronavirus pandemic.
The legislation extends unemployment benefits for 13 weeks, averting a crisis for 100,000 to 125,000 Minnesotans whose benefits were set to end later this month. It also sends $216 million in cash relief to businesses.
Minnesota lawmakers strike deal on unemployment benefits and COVID-19 business relief
Minnesota lawmakers struck a deal on unemployment benefits and COVID-19 business relief.
The Senate voted 62-4 on Monday evening, and the House voted 117-13. Gov. Tim Walz said he planned to sign the bill as soon as possible. Top lawmakers who negotiated the deal over the past three weeks said Minnesota needed to act because Congress had not.
Minnesota business coalition plans to defy Walz shutdown order James Walsh, Star Tribune
An executive order issued last month by Gov. Tim Walz closing bars and restaurants and other businesses to slow the spread of COVID-19 is set to expire Friday.
But a loose-knit group of businesses doesn t plan to wait to reopen their doors.
ReOpen Minnesota Coalition, which claims support from roughly 160 statewide businesses ranging from bars to fitness studios, plans to defy the governor by encouraging members to reopen Wednesday, the same day Walz is expected to extend or modify his executive order or let it expire. Their livelihoods and their constitutional rights are at stake, said Lisa Monet Zarza, a coalition member who owns Alibi Drinkery in Lakeville.
Over 150 Minnesota Bars and Restaurants Set to Defy COVID-19 Restrictions
A group of over 150 Minnesotabusinesses, called the ReOpen Minnesota Coalition, is planning to reopen this week in defiance of potential COVID-19 restrictions, if they are extended.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, issued a “dial back” order (pdf) on Nov. 20, due to expire on Friday but which Walz has signaled he plans to renew on Wednesday. Under the order, all bars and restaurants in Minnesota were forced to shut down indoor and outdoor dining service and provide takeout or delivery only, and gyms were closed.
Darius Teichroew, who founded the ReOpen Minnesota Coalition, told CBS that the aim of the loose-knit group is “to provide a little bit of peace and prosperity to these owners and their desperate employees as we approach Christmas.”
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A group of over 150 Minnesota businesses is planning to reopen this week, defying Gov. Tim Walz’s COVID-19 restrictions.
“They’ve got bills to pay, children to feed, presents to gift, and they’re going to lose their homes,” Darius Teichroew, the founder of the Reopen Minnesota Coalition,
said of the state’s unemployed during a radio interview this week.
Teichroew’s group plans to have rural businesses reopen on Wednesday and metro businesses reopen on Friday. Walz’s “peacetime emergency” order was set to expire on Friday, but the governor
announced Monday that he will extend it.
AP Photo/Gregory Bull
The small business owners in Minnesota have had it with the restrictions that have kept their businesses from keeping food on the table of the employees and serving the communities. As such, more than 150 small businesses from the state have banded together to resist further lockdown measures should they be enacted.
Minnesota is looking to extend lockdown measures under a “dial back” order, requiring all restaurants to cease any indoor or outdoor dining and resort to delivery only. Gyms and fitness centers are to close and all sports will be postponed.
But the business owners appear to be rallying together to declare that enough is enough.