A new U.S. Chamber of Commerce and MetLife survey found a majority of small business owners are supportive of vaccine mandates, but the Job Creators Network is calling the poll “extremely misleading.”
According to the survey, 64 percent of small business owners expressed support for President Biden’s employer mandate for companies with 100 or more employees, while the same percentage also approved of businesses in their area initiating mandates.
Additionally, 51 percent said they are likely to or already requiring customers show proof of their vaccination status. "This represents a shift in attitudes on vaccine requirements from June (when 38% reported being likely/already doing so), before COVID-19 variants worsened the pandemic in the U.S.," according to the report. "Though only 10% now say they already require customers to show vaccine cards, just 3% said they were doing so back in June."
In our latest Small Business Pulse Report, MetLife and the @USChamber dug into what challenges small businesses are facing around hiring and recruitment in their economic recovery. Read the full Pulse Report here: https://t.co/9NbWk0gW1q pic.twitter.com/8f5nsLCKzZ
— MetLife (@MetLife) October 28, 2021
Job Creators Network pushed back on the results, however, calling them "extremely misleading."
"Ninety-eight percent of the people polled for the Chamber survey own companies with under 100 employees," JCN president and CEO Alfredo Ortiz said in a statement. "The Biden vaccine mandate does not affect them. What the Chamber should have done is poll company owners who are affected by the mandate. Since the Chamber didn’t do that, it’s clear they’re trying to manipulate the public into supporting a vaccine mandate.
"The Chamber claims it supports small businesses, but this polling manipulation demonstrates otherwise," he continued.
JCN plans to sue the Biden administration if the private employer mandate is finalized.
"We are not anti-vaccine; we are anti-government mandates that will hurt small businesses and hurt our entire economy," Ortiz said.