New York City to pay people $100 for getting COVID-19 vaccine

New York City will pay $100 for people to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Starting Friday, residents who get their first vaccine dose at a city-run vaccination site will get a $100 incentive, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced Wednesday.

De Blasio said the $100 will make a “big impact, particularly in a world in which more and more things are going to be determined by whether you’re vaccinated or not.”

“We wanted to supercharge it by saying we’ll give you extra, direct personal incentive to get this done now,” he continued.

Residents and city employees will receive a $100 prepaid debit card, said Rachel Loeb, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

Residents can immediately redeem the card digitally, or receive a physical debit card.

The incentive is the latest the mayor has announced to get the city vaccinated. De Blasio said Wednesday that 9,902,097 doses have been administered.

Fifty-nine percent of the city’s population has received one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to data from the city, while 54 percent have been fully inoculated.

On Monday, de Blasio said that all city employees would need to be fully vaccinated or undergo frequent coronavirus testing by Sept. 13.

The mayor said that while vaccine mandates are a “crucial part” of the solution, mandates work well with incentives.  

“We’ve talked the last few days about mandates, and there’s no question in my mind that mandates are a crucial part of the solution, and we’ll keep working on those. But we also still believe in incentives. Incentives help immensely. Both go well together,” de Blasio said.