Federal Funds Allocated for Hiring Healthcare Workers

On Thursday, May 13, 2021, the Biden Administration announced that it will allocate $7.4 billion to hire public healthcare workers. Among other things, the funds will be used to start the Public Health Americorps, ease the burden on “‘overstretched'” health departments, hire school nurses and “‘modernize the public health workforce'” (The Hill).

The funding is part of the pandemic relief package that legislators passed earlier in March. Nearly half of the allocated funds will be used to alleviate the burden on health departments that are understaffed. Those hired will do “vaccination outreach, testing, contract tracing, and other tasks” (The Hill). An additional $3 billion will be used over a longer period of time to “‘modernize'” aspects of public health, including the creation of a grant program.

A small portion of the funds will be set aside to hire school nurses to assist with vaccinating children as COVID-19 vaccines are approved for younger age groups.

Click here to read more from The Hill.