Americans support employers requiring COVID vaccines — unless it’s their boss, poll finds
A new poll found most Americans think employers should require the COVID-19 vaccine — but don’t want theirs to do the same.
The Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Wednesday found respondents were divided on whether they support employers requiring workers to get vaccinated but that a stronger majority don’t want their own to do so. The poll also found Americans were more likely to get vaccinated if their employers encouraged it or offered paid time off.
The poll surveyed 1,888 adults between June 8-21 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The survey results come as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than 66% of adults in the United States have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and more than 57% are fully vaccinated.
Should employers require the vaccine?
The poll found 51% of respondents support and 46% oppose the idea of employers requiring the COVID-19 vaccine, with exceptions if an employee has a medical excuse.
It found larger divides in answers based on respondents’ political affiliation and vaccine status.
Seventy-three percent of Democrats think employers should require the vaccine while only 30% of Republicans said the same. Among Independents, 47% said they support such a requirement.
The poll found 68% of already vaccinated respondents support such a requirement while only 19% of respondents who have not been vaccinated answered the same.
But a larger majority of respondents overall, 61%, said they don’t want their own employer to require the vaccine.
Republicans were more likely than Democrats to not want their employer to require the vaccine, 85% compared to 37%, and unvaccinated Americans were more likely than vaccinated Americans to not want their employer to require it, 92% compared to 42%, the poll found.
Whether employers or others should require the COVID-19 vaccine has been a major topic of debate as more Americans get vaccinated against COVID-19 and as the federal government, health officials and some companies are working to increase the country’s vaccination rates.
Legal experts have largely agreed that employers have a right to require the vaccine for their employees, McClatchy News reported in November, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in May reaffirmed that companies can require employees to get the vaccine with few exceptions.
The EEOC said in updated guidelines that there are no federal laws that prevent an employer from requiring employees who are physically in the workplace to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
Encouraging employees to get the vaccine
The poll found workers surveyed were more likely to get the COVID-19 vaccine if their employer encouraged it or provided paid time off to get vaccinated and recover from any side effects.
Among workers whose employers encouraged employees to get vaccinated, 73% said they have already received at least one dose of the vaccine. Meanwhile, 41% of employees whose employers did not encourage their employees to get the vaccine answered the same.
Seventy-five percent of workers whose companies offered paid time off for the vaccine said they have already received at least one dose, while 51% of workers who were not offered paid time off answered the same.
The poll also found fewer workers, 39%, support the idea of employers offering cash bonuses or other incentives than workers who support the idea of them mandating vaccination.
Among Democrats, 59% support such incentives for vaccination. Meanwhile, 42% of Independents and 21% of Republicans support them, the poll found.
Forty-five percent of vaccinated Americans and 29% of unvaccinated Americans support incentives.
The EEOC said in May that employers can offer incentives for employees to get vaccinated against the virus as long as it is “not so substantial as to be coercive.”
“Getting more Americans vaccinated isn’t only up to the government,” Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman said in a news release. “Even without requiring workers to get a vaccine, employers can play a role by offering paid time off to get vaccinated and encouraging their workers to do so.”
This story was originally published June 30, 2021 at 9:46 AM with the headline "Americans support employers requiring COVID vaccines — unless it’s their boss, poll finds."
