Grocers Have A Strategy To Get Their Workers Vaccinated Against COVID-19: Pay Them

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A Trader Joe’s worker disinfects shopping carts and controls the number of customers allowed to shop at one time in Omaha, Neb., on May 7, 2020. Grocers like Trader Joe’s are offering pay incentives to encourage their workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Nati Harnik/AP

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Nati Harnik/AP

Business
Should The Government Pay People To Get Vaccinated? Some Economists Think So

The payments come as governments and companies grapple with how to get people vaccinated amid significant skepticism about the doses.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, says the United States will likely need a vaccination level of between 70% and 90% to reach herd immunity.

Paying people is an idea that is winning adherents, but it also has its critics, who believe that offering to pay people could actually reinforce skepticism about the vaccine by making it seem risky.

Business
As COVID-19 Vaccine Nears, Employers Consider Making It Mandatory

Employers have the legal right to require that their workers get the COVID-19 vaccine, with some exceptions, according to experts.

But it can be tricky. Workers also generally have the right to request medical or religious exemptions to vaccines under federal anti-discrimination laws, and companies are so far wading carefully.

Dollar General, for example, made clear it would not force its employees to get vaccinated when announcing its pay incentives last week.

«We understand the decision to receive the COVID-19 vaccination is a personal choice, the chain said. «And although we are encouraging employees to take it, we are not requiring them to do so.