Advertisement

A Covid underclass is forming

Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman reports vaccination disputes arising as return to work picks up steam.

Video transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I want to bring in our senior columnist Rick Newman now for some reaction. Rick, we know that this has been a big priority for Biden. How important would this win be for him, for his presidency? And how close do you think we really are on a deal? I know he says they have a deal, but if you heard Jess's report just now, it seems like there are still some hurdles they need to jump.

RICK NEWMAN: I'll believe it when I see it, Alexis. I remain skeptical. So there is a deal between Biden and 20 senators. But that doesn't mean this legislation is going to pass. And I think there are still plenty of potholes for this. And the main reason is, if you have enough Republican senators to say, OK, we agree to this infrastructure bill because it does not include the tax hikes on businesses and the wealthy that we are adamantly opposed to, but Democrats are just going to put those tax hikes in another bill that they're going to pass without Republicans, I think that will remain a source of resistance.

And you also have Nancy Pelosi kind of raising the stakes, like she did last year with the stimulus bill, where she would not take yes for an answer. She wants both of these things to go at the same time, which is almost just putting it right in Republicans' faces and saying, well, we got a Republican infrastructure bill with you, but we're still passing all the other stuff you won't give us through this other method. So I think there are a lot of barriers still to this actually becoming law.

KRISTIN MYERS: So Rick, I want to ask you just a brief pivot here about a story that you've actually been working on, which is actually this COVID underclass that is forming right now in the United States, as so many folks right now are refusing to get vaccinated. Of course, this infrastructure bill should fuel the economy. We'll see probably a lot more jobs being created. But of course, this push and pull, really, between employers and employees over the vaccinations really seems to be a sticking issue.

RICK NEWMAN: I think this is going to end up being a big deal. And I think workers who insist they should not have to get vaccinated to go back to their workplace, I think they're going to be on the losing end of this. We saw just recently a judge ruled in a case in Texas about 150 hospital workers said they would not get vaccinated. A judge said, well, too bad. He called it a frivolous lawsuit they had filed. And they're all out of a job. They either quit or got fired.

There are other lawsuits like this percolating. The law seems pretty clear at this point. The government has said, look, the law allows employers to require their workers to get vaccinated. Judges have basically said the same thing. And if polls are saying that portion of Americans who refuse to get vaccinated apply to the overall workforce, we're talking about more than 30 million workers who are not going to get vaccinated. So this could potentially blow up into something big.

I think right now, employers are mostly handling this with kid gloves. Most places are not fully back to the workplace. But as we get back to normal and everybody or many people go back to the office, I think this is going to hit a boiling point.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I think you're right. You're right, Rick. We'll be able to read your article shortly on our website.