Poll: 70 percent of unvaccinated Americans would quit their job over exemption-less vaccine mandate
About 70 percent of unvaccinated Americans who are not self-employed said they would likely quit their job if their employer mandated COVID-19 vaccines and did not grant religious or medical exemptions, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll found.
Those numbers don't suggest vaccine mandates would lead to a massive exodus from the workplace since a healthy majority of employees who are working at places that have yet to implement a mandate have already received their shots. But among the 30 percent or so who haven't, there is significant opposition. Only 16 percent from that group would comply with a mandate, while 35 percent said they would seek an exemption and 42 percent would leave. If there's no exemption, then 72 percent of those surveyed said they would quit.
Still, overall vaccine hesitancy has continued to decline, and the Post poll is the latest data set indicating more and more people are willing to get their shots, or have already done so. Mask and vaccine requirements are also favored by a majority of people.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Post/ABC poll was conducted by telephone between Aug. 20-Sept. 1 among 1,066 adults in the U.S. The margin of error is 3.5 percentage points. Read more at The Washington Post.
Correction: The headline for this article originally failed to clarify that the 70 percent figure applied specifically to unvaccinated people.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.
-
'Sleaze baack!'
Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
By The Week Staff Published
-
Quiz of The Week: 20 - 26 April
Puzzles and Quizzes Have you been paying attention to The Week's news?
By Rebecca Messina, The Week UK Published
-
Humza Yousaf clears the decks to battle no-confidence vote
Speed Read First minister is 'done', according to insider, but a single vote could change the balance
By Arion McNicoll, The Week UK Published
-
Texas dairy worker gets bird flu from infected cow
Speed Read The virus has been spreading among cattle in Texas, Kansas, Michigan and New Mexico
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Dengue hits the Americas hard and early
Speed Read Puerto Rico has declared an epidemic as dengue cases surge
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Covid four years on: have we got over the pandemic?
Today's Big Question Brits suffering from both lockdown nostalgia and collective trauma that refuses to go away
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
US bans final type of asbestos
Speed Read Exposure to asbestos causes about 40,000 deaths in the U.S. each year
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The hollow classroom
Opinion Remote school let kids down. It will take much more than extra tutoring for kids to recover.
By Mark Gimein Published
-
Excess screen time is making children only see what is in front of them
Under the radar The future is looking blurry. And very nearsighted.
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Covid-19: what to know about UK's new Juno and Pirola variants
in depth Rapidly spreading new JN.1 strain is 'yet another reminder that the pandemic is far from over'
By Arion McNicoll, The Week UK Published
-
Long-term respiratory illness is here to stay
The Explainer Covid is not the only disease with a long version
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published