Biden Announces Tax Credit for Businesses That Give Employees Paid Leave to Get Vaccines

 

President Joe Biden said Wednesday that employers should be giving workers paid time off so they can get their Covid-19 vaccines.

The president talked up progress in the ongoing vaccination rollout, and said at one point, “One concern I have heard from so many Americans is that they can’t afford to take the time off to get vaccinated or lose a day’s work because they are feeling slightly under the weather after their shot.”

So Biden said, “I’m calling on every employer, large and small, in every state to give employees the time off they need, with pay, to get vaccinated. And any time they need with pay to recover, if they’re feeling under the weather after the shot.”

“No working American should lose a single dollar from their paycheck because they chose to fulfill their patriotic duty of getting vaccinated,” the president said.

He talked about the owner of a hair salon, starting to say, “She’s also dedicated to getting her customers and employees vaccinated, that when they leave the saloon…”

Biden corrected himself and said, “They may be going to the saloon, I don’t know.”

He continued to say that businesses should be supported for helping employees like that, and said “the IRS is posting instructions for how employers can get reimbursed for the cost of providing paid leave for their employees to get vaccinated and recover from the side effects, if they have any.”

The tax credit, Axios reported earlier, reimburses businesses “with fewer than 500 employees”

You can watch above, via CNN.

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Josh Feldman is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Email him here: josh@mediaite.com Follow him on Twitter: @feldmaniac