Fact check: Will state employees get $25,000 bonuses from Biden’s COVID stimulus?
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No Republicans voted for the $1.9 trillion bill COVID-19 stimulus bill signed last week by President Joe Biden, while all but one Democrat voted for it.
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, has sought to point out — in floor speeches, on social media and in Fox News interviews — some of the problems he said made the law more of a Democratic “slush fund” than responsible government spending.
Here’s one of the issues he raised, and our analysis:
Claim: “You (the taxpayer) are now going to provide bonuses up to $25,000 to government employees and bureaucrats.”
Rating: Mostly true
Context: Democrats created a fund in the law to give “premium pay” to state employees who are deemed essential. Employees that a state deems eligible would be able to receive up to $13 per hour on top of their typical wages for all work during the COVID–19 pandemic.
The max amount any individual worker could be paid is $25,000. Any money for premium pay would come out of the $26 billion the law allocates to California state government.
Who qualifies for that extra pay is largely up to the states. The law defines those eligible as a worker “needed to maintain continuity of operations of essential critical infrastructure sectors and additional sectors ... to protect the health and well-being of the residents of their State, territory, or Tribal government.”
H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the California Department of Finance, said Gov. Gavin Newsom will make decisions on who he thinks should be eligible for the premium pay — plus how the rest of the federal money should be spent — in his revised state budget plan in May.
However, Palmer said it’s possible the bonus could also apply to private sector employees, it just depends how Newsom identifies an “essential” worker. So the bonus won’t necessarily go to “government employees and bureaucrats.”
The Legislature will then have to approve or revise his revised budget plan before any state employees see bonus money.
This story was originally published March 17, 2021 at 2:42 PM with the headline "Fact check: Will state employees get $25,000 bonuses from Biden’s COVID stimulus?."
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