WILMINGTON, DELAWARE – JANUARY 08: U.S. President-elect Joe Biden delivers remarks after he announced cabinet nominees that will round out his economic team, including secretaries of commerce and labor, at The Queen theater on January 08, 2021 in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden announced he is nominating Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo as his commerce secretary, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh his labor secretary and Isabel Guzman, a former Obama administration official, as head of the Small Business Administration. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
President Joe Biden is calling on state, local and U.S. territorial governments to provide $100 payments to every newly vaccinated American, according to USA Today.
The incentive aims to boost COVID-19 inoculation rates, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday in a statement.
Such incentives are an allowable use of funds from the $350 billion in aid granted to state, local, territorial and tribal governments under the American Rescue Plan Act.
“For these governments and the communities they represent, no task is more urgent than turning the tide on the pandemic, and there is no better tool than vaccination. This is why Treasury is encouraging state, territorial, and local governments to use the funds to enhance their vaccination efforts, including by providing individual vaccine incentives,” the statement says.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is already implementing the initiative and has issued a vaccine mandate for all of New York’s roughly 340,000 city employees.
De Blasio announced yesterday that anyone who goes to a city-run vaccination site for their first dose of the vaccine will receive $100 starting Friday.
Biden is expected to make a similar mandate for federal workers when he delivers his speech on the White House’s vaccination campaign later today.
