be exempt from the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security

[GoodTaste]

People of color are disproportionately employed in low-wage industries in which occupational exposures to SARS-CoV-2 have be,en elevated, yet which provide relatively few worker protections such as health insurance and sick leave.2 For example, the home health care industry successfully argued that their workers should be exempt from the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, lest its provisions for paid family and sick leave result in worker shortages.

Source: New England Journal of Medicine.

I don’t understand the meaning of “exempt from” — Oxford dictionary explains it as“free from”’, I don’t understand it well enough either. It seems to mean “excluded by” or “not qualified for”. I am just not sure.

 

[emsr2d2]

It means that those workers in the home health care industry are not allowed to apply for/qualify for the financial assistance that is offered to other people under the CARES Act. The industry bosses were worried that too many people would take (paid) time off work, resulting in staff shortages.