Would you take $1,500 stimulus check in exchange for coronavirus vaccine?

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Another round of stimulus checks looks very unlikely as the government is now preparing to get the vaccine out to people. However, if a new idea is anything to go by, then Americans could get $1,500 in coronavirus stimulus checks in exchange for taking the COVID-19 vaccine.

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Coronavirus stimulus checks in exchange for vaccine

This new idea of checks in exchange of vaccination comes from John Delaney, an entrepreneur and a former Democratic congressman for Maryland. Delaney also ran for president in 2020.

“The faster we get 75 percent of this country vaccinated, the faster we end Covid and the sooner everything returns to normal,” Delaney told CNBC.

Backing his idea, Delaney said that public polls have found that whether or not to take a vaccine has become a political issue. According to a Gallup poll, 58% of people are willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

Thus, Delaney believes that people need to be given some incentive “to really accelerate their thinking about taking the vaccine.” Even after the incentive, if people chose not to take the vaccine, then it’s their “right.”

“You won’t participate in this program,” Delaney said.

Even those who don’t participate in the program would eventually benefit, he says. “You’re going to benefit anyhow, because we’ll get the country to herd immunity faster, which benefits you. So I think everyone wins,” Delaney said.

Explaining why giving the incentive isn’t wrong, Delaney says the U.S. already has similar plans to encourage people to get other vaccines, such as children needing them to go to school.

“It’s not like we don’t pull levers to get people vaccinated,” Delaney said. “We do that now.”

Delaney also gave an example of countries that reimburse people for vaccination. For instance, the Mexican government pays people to get their children immunized.

Is the program worth the cost?

Talking about the execution of the plan, Delaney says a system will be created that will send people a number once they are vaccinated. Such people will have to enter this number along with their Social Security number, in order, to get the stimulus check.

Delaney says sending $1,500 coronavirus stimulus checks to Americans in exchange for vaccination could cost about $380 billion. The cost of the $1,200 stimulus checks, sent under the CARES Act, was about $270 billion.

Though Delaney says $380 billion is too much, he believes it is effective and worth it as it would end the need of any other aid. Congress is currently negotiating a package, which if approved, would certainly cost much more than $380 billion. Democrats are demanding a package of $2.2 trillion, while Senate Republicans are in favor of a small package of about $500 billion.

“The faster we end Covid and the sooner everything returns to normal, which means we don’t need any more programs,” Delaney said.

Potential coronavirus vaccine may block your stimulus checks

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Lawmakers have worked for months to come up with the next relief package, but so far there has been nothing except for words. Post-election developments do hint of a coronavirus stimulus package soon, but there is one more crucial factor that could decide when Congress approves the relief bill and if it would include checks or not, and this factor is the COVID-19 vaccine.

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A vaccine dims chances of coronavirus stimulus checks

The sooner we have an effective COVID-19 vaccine, the better are the chances of no, or a reduced, stimulus package. In case any vaccine gets emergency use authorization, and it helps the economy to get back to normal, then it would lower the need for any stimulus package.

Moreover, there are good chances of a vaccine coming soon. On Monday, Moderna announced that it has found its vaccine to be 94% effective in preliminary trial data. Separately, Pfizer and BioNTech have also revealed that their vaccine was more than 90% effective in trials.

“The improvement in the labor market, the improvement in the economy, the improvement in vaccine development all take pressure off of Congress from delivering,” Ed Mills, Washington policy analyst at Raymond James said, according to CNBC.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, last week, also reiterated his push for a smaller and targeted relief package following the Pfizer news and better-than-expected jobs data. Even before the election, McConnell has tried to come up with a targeted relief package, but Senate Democrats blocked it arguing that it isn’t enough to meet the needs of Americans.

Democrats want a relief package costing more than $2 trillion.

Congress still needs to approve stimulus package

It is very likely that a vaccine would dim the chances of a coronavirus stimulus package and checks. However, former Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Bill Dudley believes that promising early data on the COVID-19 vaccine strengthens the need of a stimulus package.

Speaking to CNBC, Dudley says that the Congress should approve a stimulus bill costing between $1 trillion and $2 trillion to assist businesses and people to weather the next six to nine months. The need for the stimulus package is more important now because the Federal Reserve now lacks the resources to prevent the economy from pandemic-induced damage over the next few months.

Dudley argues that the arrival of potential vaccines could make the price tag of the stimulus package more agreeable to the lawmakers as they would know that the crisis will end soon.

“It makes the case for fiscal stimulus even more compelling,” Dudley said, adding, “you basically want to prevent scarring...and a little fiscal stimulus can go a long way in reducing the scarring in the economy so that you can have a stronger recovery on the other side.”

Many others, such as Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi, also believe that Congress needs to come up with a stimulus package. This is because even if any vaccine gets emergency use authorization, it could take several months before the vaccine is widely available to the public.