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Biden says employers should offer workers paid leave to get vaccinated and recover from side effects

Delivering remarks at the White House on Wednesday, President Biden asked employers to offer paid leave to allow employees to get vaccinated and to recover if they are feeling side effects from the shot. Biden said small-to-medium-sized businesses could get reimbursed by an IRS program.

Video transcript

JOE BIDEN: As we move into the vaccination campaign focused on working age adults, one concern I've 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 have feeling slightly under the weather after the shot. So today, I'm announcing a program to address that issue nationwide. 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.

So to make sure this policy comes at no cost to small or medium-sized businesses with fewer than 500 employees, the IRS has posted instructions for how employers can get reimbursed for the cost of providing paid leave for employees to get vaccinated and recover from the side effects, if they have any. That reimbursement, which comes through a tax payment, is thanks to the program I launched in the American Rescue Plan. So again, every employee should get paid leave to get a shot. And businesses should know that they can provide it without a hit to their bottom line. There's no excuse for not getting it done.