Small Business Pulse Survey Asks About Vaccine, Shows Impact of Winter Storms on Texas Small Businesses

Most of the nation’s small businesses do not require employees to get COVID-19 vaccines or tests to return to work, according to the first results of Phase 4 of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Small Business Pulse Survey (SBPS) released last week.

SBPS was launched Feb. 15, to measure the effect of changing business conditions during the coronavirus pandemic on our nation's small businesses. Many prior survey questions have evolved and additional questions such as those related to coronavirus vaccinations and tests have been added.

It’s notable that while designed to measure changing business conditions during the coronavirus pandemic, the SBPS also captures the impact of natural disasters on small business.

The recent data make it increasingly clear that SBPS is sufficiently resilient and current to measure the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic as well as other natural disasters such as the recent storms that hit the southern United States.

The value of this experimental data product is far-reaching, providing decisionmakers and the public with near real-time insight into the impact of events, from the pandemic to natural disasters, on the small-business economy.

Following are the survey’s new questions about the vaccine and initial data results:

Question: In the last week, did this business require employees to test negative for COVID-19 before physically coming to work? Respondents may select only one of the following check boxes: “yes,” “no” or “not applicable, this business did not have employees physically coming to work in the last week.”

Responses: 10.0% said yes; 70.1% said no; and 19.9% said not applicable or n/a. Responses in two specific sectors outpaced the national average**:** 15.5% of health care and 14.3% of accommodation/food service businesses for requiring a negative test.

!

Question: In the last week, did this business require employees to have proof of COVID-19 vaccination before physically coming to work? Respondents may select only one: “yes,” “no” or “not applicable, this business did not have employees physically coming to work in the last week.”

Responses: 2.2% said yes; 78.4% said no; and 19.4% said not applicable. Health care was by far the largest sector requiring a vaccine with 62% of its respondents checking that box.

!

<div id="titlecore-304175ce4a"

Where this page came from

This page was imported from U.S. Census Bureau. Published by the U.S. Census Bureau and, as a work of the United States government, in the public domain; material credited to others is left out.

Nobody has written it yet — it is the source material at a new address, which is why search engines are asked to skip it and why no one earns from it. It is up for grabs: take it on, and it is yours to rewrite and to earn from.