If the mandate stands, businesses risk hemorrhaging workers. Recent reports suggest 72 percent of unvaccinated employees would quit their jobs if they are ordered to be vaccinated. For many workers at Mr. Trosclair’s stores, this may be less of a principled choice and more of a practical financial decision.
The mandate, which encourages employers to push the costs of weekly COVID tests onto their unvaccinated workers, could cut deeply into budgets of people already struggling to make ends meet. According to CVS Pharmacy, PCR tests can cost more than $100 for those paying out of pocket. Over-the-counter tests are much cheaper but already hard to come by. Scarcity and pricing would naturally worsen if millions of unvaccinated workers must undergo weekly mass testing under the Biden mandate.
Over the course of a year, the cost of PCR tests could reach more than $5,000 for an employee who must foot the bill. The average annual pay for grocery store jobs in Louisiana is $29,387. An unvaccinated employee making this salary, if forced to submit to weekly testing, would in effect be facing a 17 percent pay cut.
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