Chris Lambert, a small business owner in Indiana, says he has encouraged his eight employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. But for a variety of reasons – including the fact that 90% of them are already inoculated – he has not taken the step that so many in his position are grappling with across the country.
“I do want to give the employees the choice, because I do ultimately believe it is theirs,” says Lambert, who owns Christopher James Menswear, an upscale clothier in Fort Wayne. “I've given them as much information as possible to allow them to make an educated decision.”
Lambert is hardly the only small business owner in his state who is declining to mandate the vaccine for workers. Only 3.3% of small businesses in Indiana required employees to have proof of COVID-19 vaccination before physically coming to work over a recent weeklong stretch – the smallest percentage among the more than 30 states that reported data, according to a report released on Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Small Business Pulse Survey. Nationwide, only about 13% of such businesses require workers to show proof of inoculation, according to the census statistics, which were collected between Dec. 6 to 12. The bureau defines small businesses as having fewer than 250 employees and less than $5 million in revenue.
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