# Essential Worker Pandemic Compensation Act of 2021

During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of workers had to show up in person to keep essential services running—healthcare workers, grocery store employees, transit workers, utility workers, and many others. This bill creates a compensation program to help those workers and their families if they got seriously sick or died from COVID-19 while doing their jobs.

The program offers two types of payments. If an essential worker dies from COVID-19 or complications related to it, their survivors receive death benefits equal to what public safety officers' families get under existing federal programs. This includes a base payment plus educational assistance for the worker's children and spouse if they're enrolled in college. If an essential worker gets hospitalized from COVID-19 but survives, they receive a one-time payment equal to half the death benefit amount. Importantly, these payments don't count as taxable income, and they won't be reduced if the worker receives other compensation from employers, insurance, or lawsuits.

To qualify, workers must prove three things: they were employed as an essential worker (defined broadly to include workers the government identified as critical infrastructure workers, plus others the program administrator determines), they were hospitalized or died from COVID-19, and they caught the virus while working. People have until July 1, 2022 to file claims. The program is run by a Special Master appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who handles all the paperwork and decides who qualifies. The program shuts down at the end of 2022, though educational benefits for survivors continue beyond that date. Congress would need to appropriate whatever money is necessary to pay all eligible claims.

Essential Worker Pandemic Compensation Act of 2021

Speier, Jackie

Essential Worker Pandemic Compensation Act of 2021 This bill compensates specified essential workers who die or are hospitalized as a result of COVID-19 (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019) or related complications. Specifically, the bill provides death benefits to survivors of essential workers equal to the amount available under the public safety officer benefits program. Essential workers include those identified in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency guidance or by a Special Master appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services. Such death benefits include additional payments to a surviving spouse or child enrolled in qualified postsecondary education. Further, essential workers who are hospitalized as a result of COVID-19 receive one half of the base death benefit amount.