Minnesota Budget Bites

The COVID-19 crisis, and the longstanding crises in policing and racial inequity in Minnesota, have damaged our health, livelihoods, and communities. Policymakers must take bold steps to better ensure Minnesotans can stay healthy, safe, and get by economically in the immediate term, and invest in resilience in all communities for the future.

For over a decade, unaffordable housing costs due to persistently low wages has been the reality for too many Minnesota families.

The May budget projection will guide the decisions that policymakers make in the remaining weeks of the legislative session, and the months beyond. They remind us of how many of our neighbors are struggling, and the importance of taking swift action to reduce the hardships that Minnesotans and their families are facing as a result of the pandemic, and to start building for the economic recovery.

Excluding immigrant Minnesotans – who make up close to 9 percent of our state’s population – puts them and their families at risk, and it makes it more difficult for our state and communities to recover from this public health crisis.