Essential Workers

What Are Essential Workers?

Essential workers are the people a community cannot run without. The phrase caught on in March 2020. That month, the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published an advisory list of “essential critical infrastructure workers” to help states decide who should keep working in person during COVID-19 shutdowns. CISA described the list as advisory, not a federal directive or standard. It updated the list four times, most recently in August 2021, and has since archived it.

The term outlived the pandemic in housing policy. It now loosely covers nurses and hospital staff, teachers, police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, child care workers, grocery and food workers, transit operators, and utility crews. Most of these jobs have to be done on site, and many involve early, late or overnight shifts.

How the Term Is Used in Housing

No federal housing law sets a general definition of essential workers, so each program decides for itself who qualifies. Common approaches include:

• By occupation. HUD’s Good Neighbor Next Door program, for example, is open only to law enforcement officers, teachers of pre-kindergarten through grade 12, firefighters and emergency medical technicians.
• By employer. Employer-assisted housing programs serve the staff of a particular hospital, school district or company.
• By income. Many workforce housing programs use a band set as a percentage of area median income, often from about 60% or 80% up to 120%.

Some programs combine these approaches. Before assuming you qualify, check the rules of the specific program or property.

Why It Matters for Workforce Housing

Many essential jobs pay too much to qualify for most federal housing subsidies and too little to compete in high-cost markets. A 2026 Congressional Research Service analysis of 2024 wages found that teachers, paramedics, police officers and firefighters earned a median wage between 80% and 120% of HUD’s area median family income in most of the metro areas it sampled. Emergency medical technicians and emergency dispatchers earned less than 80% in most of them.

The National Housing Conference compares wages with housing costs for nearly 300 occupations in its Paycheck to Paycheck database. Its September 2025 report, which uses data through 2024, found that 47% of tracked occupations could not afford a two-bedroom apartment. The share that could afford to buy a home with 10% down fell from 37% in 2019 to 14% in 2024.

When essential workers cannot afford to live near their jobs, employers report more trouble recruiting and keeping staff. That concern drives much of the interest in workforce housing.

Criticisms and Limitations

The label is flexible, and deciding who counts is a judgment call. The Congressional Research Service notes that occupation-based and income-based eligibility do not line up neatly, because wages vary widely across occupations and places. A program limited to named occupations can include some comparatively well-paid households and leave out lower-wage workers in other necessary jobs.

A second objection comes from the debate over employer-assisted housing. Critics there argue that higher pay would serve workers better than housing tied to a particular job, because it lets them choose where to live.