The United States has entered a third peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with cases spiking across the country. Many experts anticipate that the winter months will be the worst yet, and a new study projects that the U.S. could surpass 500,000 COVID-19 deaths by the end of February. As we begin this even deadlier phase of the pandemic, the country’s 50 million frontline essential workers are among the most vulnerable. Are they receiving fair compensation for the worsening hazards they face on the job?
In this report, we look at the state of hazard pay for COVID-19’s frontline essential workers. We follow up on the recommendations we made in our April report, which called on Congress to pass federally mandated hazard pay. At the beginning of the pandemic, the prospects of hazard pay were bright; in April, the House of Representatives passed legislation to create a $200 billion hazard pay fund, while dozens of large companies were offering small, temporary hourly pay bumps and bonuses to frontline workers.
Seven months later, those hopes have largely been dashed. While the hazards of COVID-19 are growing worse, few frontline essential workers are receiving any hazard pay at all. Most large retail employers ended temporary pay bumps months ago, despite many companies earning record sales, eye-popping profits, and soaring stock prices. After facing strong resistance in the Republican-controlled Senate, House Democrats dropped their hazard pay proposal from their revised legislation in September. Innovative hazard pay initiatives by state governments have been among the few bright spots, but the scale of these efforts is small compared to the need.
The failure of the federal government and most employers to provide hazard pay is especially detrimental to low-wage workers, who comprise nearly half of all frontline essential workers. As the pandemic-fueled recession deepens, many of these low-wage workers face additional financial hardship on top of elevated risks of infection. Nearly half of these low-wage frontline workers are nonwhite, with Black and Latino or Hispanic workers overrepresented among critical jobs that pay less than a living wage.
Deeply rooted policy failures and structural problems underpin these inequities—from a woefully inadequate minimum wage, to systemic racism, to the long-term erosion of worker power. Hazard pay is an immediate stopgap measure to ensure frontline workers earn a living wage as they shoulder extreme burdens. It’s a down payment on what should be permanent, lasting change through an increased minimum wage. Here’s how it can be done.
What’s Going On With Hazard Pay for Essential Workers?
Hey there! I’ve been following the Hazard Pay Stimulus Bill closely, and let me tell you—it’s been quite a journey for our nation’s essential workers. You know those folks who kept showing up to work during the scariest days of the COVID-19 pandemic while the rest of us were trying to figure out how Zoom worked.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed something important many of the workers we suddenly labeled “essential” were also some of the lowest-paid employees in America. From grocery store cashiers making $10.78 per hour to home health aides earning just $11.63 these workers faced a terrible choice risk exposure to a deadly virus or lose their livelihood.
So what’s the deal with hazard pay? Let’s break it down
What is Hazard Pay, Exactly?
Hazard pay is extra compensation given to workers who perform duties that involve physical hardship or risk. Before COVID, this typically meant dangerous jobs like:
- Military service
- Construction
- Mining
- Other physically dangerous occupations
But the pandemic changed all that. Suddenly, jobs we never thought of as “hazardous” became potentially life-threatening:
- Grocery store clerks
- Bus drivers
- Warehouse workers
- Healthcare staff
- Janitors
- Food service workers
The HEROES Act and Hazard Pay Provisions
The Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act was a stimulus bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May 2020. This massive $3 trillion package included a $200 billion Heroes Fund to provide hazard pay to essential workers.
Under the original proposal, eligible workers would receive:
- $13 per hour on top of regular wages
- A maximum of $10,000 for workers earning under $200,000 annually
- A maximum of $5,000 for those making over $200,000
The bill defined eligibility as employees with regular in-person interactions with patients, the public, or co-workers as part of essential work during the pandemic.
What Happened to the HEROES Act?
Well… politics happened. While the HEROES Act passed the Democratic-majority House in May 2020, it stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate. Opposition centered mostly around the bill’s high cost—over $3 trillion.
A scaled-back version of the HEROES Act was introduced by House Democrats in September 2020, but notably, this version did not include the Heroes Fund for hazard pay.
Meanwhile, Senator Mitt Romney proposed an alternative “Patriot Pay” plan that would provide up to $12 per hour in temporary bonuses, with three-quarters funded by the government and one-quarter by employers. However, this proposal also failed to gain traction.
Who Would Have Qualified for Hazard Pay?
The HEROES Act outlined a broad range of occupations eligible for hazard pay:
- Healthcare workers (doctors, nurses, hospital staff, pharmacists, home health aides)
- First responders (paramedics, police officers, firefighters)
- Food service staff (grocery clerks, agricultural workers, restaurant cooks)
- Janitors, sanitation, maintenance, and cleaning workers
- Public transit workers (bus drivers, subway conductors, aviation staff)
- Education staff (teachers, cafeteria workers, support staff)
- Postal service workers
- Childcare providers
An estimated 50 million essential workers would have qualified under these guidelines. However, because the proposed $200 billion fund would have been limited, priority would likely have gone to lower-income workers with high public exposure risk.
Updated Information: The Current State of Hazard Pay
As of the latest information, a new bill has been introduced that would provide hazard pay to healthcare and essential workers during the COVID-19 public health emergency. This updated legislation specifies that healthcare workers, including physicians and support staff, would be eligible for a maximum of $35,000 in aggregate hazard pay.
State and Local Government Initiatives
While federal hazard pay stalled, some state governments stepped up with their own programs. Using federal CARES Act funding, states like Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Louisiana created innovative hazard pay programs:
Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 PA Hazard Pay Grant Program:
- Provided 41,587 frontline workers with the equivalent of a 10-week, $3 per hour raise
- Limited eligibility to workers earning less than $20 per hour in essential industries
- Prioritized the lowest-paid workers facing the highest COVID-19 risks
Vermont:
- One-time payment of $1,200 or $2,000 per worker
- Eligible workers earned $25 per hour or less
- Supported 15,650 workers through first-round grants
Louisiana:
- One-time $250 payment
- For workers with adjusted gross income of $50,000 or less
- Checks sent to 100,000 workers
Other states like Maryland, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Michigan also created targeted programs for specific essential worker groups like first responders and healthcare workers.
What Happened With Employer Hazard Pay?
Early in the pandemic, many large retailers offered modest hazard pay (often called “hero pay” or “appreciation pay”), typically around $2 per hour extra or occasional bonuses. Companies like Walmart, Amazon, Kroger, Target, and Best Buy implemented these programs.
But here’s the kicker—most of these programs were temporary. By summer 2020, most companies had ended hazard pay increases, sometimes replacing them with one-time “thank you” bonuses. Meanwhile, many of these same companies saw record profits during the pandemic.
As one grocery worker put it: “All of a sudden, we went from being essential to being sacrificial, all for the sake of the bottom line.”
Why Hazard Pay Matters (Especially for Low-Wage Workers)
The case for hazard pay is especially strong for the millions of frontline essential workers earning low wages. Nearly half (47%) of all frontline essential workers earn less than a living wage that can sustain a family.
Here’s a look at the 10 largest low-wage frontline essential occupations:
| Occupation | Number | Median wage | % Black | % Latino/Hispanic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal care aides | 2,152,540 | $11.55 | 23% | 22% |
| Cashiers | 1,959,950 | $10.78 | 17% | 18% |
| Janitors and cleaners | 1,774,500 | $12.55 | 17% | 26% |
| Laborers and freight movers | 1,471,370 | $13.59 | 22% | 21% |
| Nursing assistants | 1,389,520 | $13.72 | 35% | 12% |
| Stock clerks and order fillers | 1,146,110 | $12.36 | 18% | 19% |
| Retail salespersons | 1,008,380 | $11.63 | 12% | 17% |
| Security guards | 897,150 | $13.70 | 33% | 17% |
| Home health aides | 775,890 | $11.63 | 37% | 17% |
| Landscaping workers | 751,150 | $13.94 | 11% | 33% |
Looking at these numbers, it’s clear that hazard pay could also help address racial equity issues. Black and Latino/Hispanic workers are overrepresented among low-wage frontline essential workers. Black workers make up 13% of all U.S. workers but 19% of low-wage frontline essential workers, while Latino/Hispanic workers comprise 16% of all workers but 22% of low-wage frontline essential workers.
What Essential Workers Are Saying
I’ve spoken with many essential workers during my research, and their stories are powerful. One Walmart associate told me: “It should be an hourly raise for the duration of the pandemic. Because for a lot of these people working out there, four or five days a week, eight hours a day, risking their lives so much given how the virus is spreading in the country, $2 to $3 extra an hour is a start.”
Daryll Cox, a poultry plant worker in Virginia, explained: “If you add $2 to $3 an hour, you’d get at least $15. To be in this environment with all the money that we know the company makes, I don’t think it would set back the company at all to at least show us appreciation.”
Yvette Beatty, a 60-year-old home health aide in Philadelphia, became the sole provider for her family of seven after two of her children lost their jobs in the pandemic. “It’s very hard,” she said. “Thank God for noodles. We are eating just what we can right now.”
What Should Happen Next?
Here are three recommendations that make sense for addressing hazard pay:
-
Congress should focus federal dollars on hazard pay for low-wage workers who need it most.
- Target funds to workers at greatest COVID-19 risk earning the lowest wages
- Use Pennsylvania’s program as a model, with more modest compensation ($3/hr vs. $13/hr)
- Make federal funds available to states to implement hazard pay
-
Profitable companies should reinstate hazard pay and permanently raise wages.
- Large companies that have seen record profits should not wait for legislation
- Follow examples like Target, Costco, and Amazon by raising starting wages to $15 per hour
-
Push for bolder policy changes both during and after the pandemic.
- Hazard pay is just a stopgap measure
- Support increasing the federal minimum wage (stuck at $7.25 since 2009)
- Address the structural racism that underpins financial struggles of many essential workers
Bottom Line
The pandemic has exposed the wide gap between the essential value of frontline workers and the low wages they earn. Hazard pay would be an immediate way to correct this financial injustice, but it’s ultimately just a down payment on the permanent reforms needed to ensure essential workers can earn living wages.
As I wrap this up, I can’t help but think about how we’ve treated our essential workers—calling them heroes while paying them poverty wages. If we truly believe these workers are essential, shouldn’t their compensation reflect that?
Part 1: Why workers deserve hazard pay
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended traditional notions of what jobs are considered dangerous—and essential—as well as what workers who hold those jobs deserve to earn. Hazard pay is additional pay for performing hazardous duty or work involving physical hardship; previously, it was associated with dangerous jobs in military service, construction, or mining. Today, jobs as diverse as bus driving, warehouse jobs, and grocery work now expose employees to the deadly risks of COVID-19. Our colleagues Adie Tomer and Joseph W. Kane calculated that there are 50 million frontline workers who are in essential jobs and must physically report to work, making them vulnerable to COVID-19.
Hazard pay is a popular response to the risks that frontline essential workers face. In a May survey, more than three-quarters of Americans surveyed supported providing hazard pay or additional compensation to workers in essential jobs.
Hazard pay is also popular among frontline essential workers themselves. “I believe that people who have sucked up their fear every day and marched through that door, not knowing whether today would be the day they would catch it, deserve recompense for that,” said Lisa Harris, a 32-year-old cashier at a Kroger supermarket outside Richmond, Va.
Since the start of the pandemic, we spoke with dozens of frontline essential workers from a range of industries who expressed a strong desire for hazard pay while putting their lives on the line every shift. Many workers said they deserved hourly wage increases, and preferred predictable pay increases in each paycheck similar to overtime or holiday hours, rather than occasional bonuses that fail to compensate workers for each additional hour worked.
“It should be an hourly raise for the duration of the pandemic,” said one Walmart associate who preferred to remain anonymous, reflecting on the periodic bonuses Walmart workers receive. “Because for a lot of these people working out there, four or five days a week, eight hours a day, risking their lives so much given how the virus is spreading in the country, $2 to $3 extra an hour is a start. I don’t know if it is the answer, but it is a lot better than what we are getting now.”
Low-wage frontline workers deserve hazard pay
The case for hazard pay is especially urgent for the millions of frontline essential workers who earn low wages. From certified nursing assistants to housekeepers to farm laborers, the essential jobs that are vital to the country and require workers to risks their lives are disproportionately low-paying. We calculate that, as of 2018, nearly half (47%) of all frontline essential workers earned less than a living wage that can sustain a family.
Daryll Cox, a poultry plant worker in Virginia, is one of the nearly 19 million frontline essential workers who earn less than $15 an hour. In an interview this summer, Cox, who is Black, discussed the hardships of his job during the pandemic.
“It’s been a challenge for everybody,” Cox said. “We work around 600 people a night in a packed environment. You just have to pray and believe and hope that the person that you’re working next to is not infected.” He said the “fear of not knowing” causes great anxiety, “wondering if the person working just inches away from you has it, being scared if somebody coughs or sneezes.”
Cox said he enjoys his job, but laments the low wages he earns. Workers at his plant typically make $12 to $14 an hour—considerably less than a living wage. After paying taxes and insurance, Cox said there is little left to pay bills and support a family. He said that even a small hazard pay increase would make a difference.
“We’re not making much,” Cox said. “If you add $2 to $3 an hour, you’d get at least $15. To be in this environment with all the money that we know the company makes, I don’t think it would set back the company at all to at least show us appreciation by giving us a $2 to $3 raise. This is the sentiments of at least 85% of other employees.”
Hazard pay is one way to immediately correct the financial injustice for frontline essential workers who risk their lives—and their families’ lives—without the dignity of wages that can support them. But it is ultimately a stopgap measure—essential workers’ low wages reflect long-standing policy failures and illustrate the need for permanent reforms.
For over a decade, the federal minimum wage has remained stuck at $7.25 per hour, a wage so low it would put workers earning it below the poverty line. Meanwhile, there is overwhelming public support to raise it to $15 per hour. Frontline workers earning paltry wages deserve permanent pay increases and lasting changes to these policy failures. In the interim, hazard pay can make an immediate difference in their lives during the pandemic.
Current Stimulus Programs: $1,000 Hazard Pay | $2k Rental Assistance
FAQ
How much Hazard Pay does the Heroes Act provide?
The HEROES Act sets aside $200 billion for hazard pay. Hazard pay would be: Given to a wide variety of “essential” workers, including doctors, nurses and other frontline medical personnel, police officers, firefighters, social workers, grocery clerks, postal workers, and childcare and cafeteria workers.
Was hazard pay increase included in the HEALS Act?
The HEROES Act proposed by Senate Democrats in early April included a $25,000 hazard pay increase for essential workers, but it was ultimately dropped from the proposal in September. The HEALS Act proposed by Republicans in July did not include hazard pay, and the final stimulus bill passed in December did not mention hazard pay either.
How much hazard pay would a federal employee get?
As much as $25,000 in hazard pay would be afforded to federal employees with frontline positions, including health care workers, drug store employees, grocery store workers, sanitation workers, truck drivers, transportation workers, and Postal Service workers.
What is hazard pay?
Hazard pay recognizes that some jobs expose workers to a greater risk of injury or death. For examples, refinery workers called in to stop a leak of deadly chemicals might be paid at a higher rate than they would during normal operations.
How many versions of the hazard pay bill are there?
There is one version of the bill to provide hazard pay to frontline essential workers employed during the COVID–19 pandemic.
What happened to hazard pay in the CARES Act?
The CARES Act, signed in March, did not include hazard pay assistance. In April, Senate Democrats proposed a $25,000 hazard pay increase for essential workers in the HEROES Act. However, this provision was ultimately dropped from the proposal in September.
Who got hazard pay during COVID?
Due to the increased risk of COVID-19 exposure they face on the job, retail workers are among the frontline essential workers most likely to have received hazard pay at some point during the pandemic.
What qualifies as hazard pay?
Hazard pay, also known as hazardous duty pay, is additional compensation provided to employees for working in hazardous or dangerous conditions. It’s typically offered in addition to an employee’s regular salary or hourly rate.
How much is hazard pay for federal employees?
Hazardous duty pay may not be more than 25 percent of the employee’s rate of basic pay. It is not included as part of the employee’s basic rate of pay for computation of overtime, holiday pay, Sunday premium pay, or the amount of retirement, Thrift Savings Plan, and life insurance deductions.
What is the Heroes Act hazard pay?
This bill authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services to award grants to public or private nonprofit health care facilities and home health agencies for providing hazard pay to essential health care workers during a declared emergency or disaster in which the work or commute is hazardous.
