Vanguard Offers $1,000 To Each Vaccinated Employee

Vanguard Group is giving $1,000 to employees who show proof of vaccination against COVID-19, with the mutual fund and asset- management firm joining other companies offering both carrots and sticks in an effort to spur workers to get inoculated.

And it's quite the golden carrot, that $1,000. Vanguard is offering the unusually rich bonus to its roughly 16,500 U.S.-based workers who get their shots by October, the company confirmed in an email to CBS MoneyWatch after the incentive was first reported by Bloomberg News, 

Unlike a growing number of companies, Vanguard is not mandating its workers get vaccinated. 

"Vanguard recognizes vaccines are the best way to stop the spread of this virus and strongly encourages crew to be vaccinated," the company stated. "As such, we are offering a vaccine incentive for crew who provide COVID-19 vaccination proof. The incentive recognizes crew who have taken the time to protect themselves, each other and our communities by being vaccinated," the company stated.

Headquartered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Vanguard also has offices in Charlotte, North Carolina; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Washington, D.C., and plans to open a fifth location in Dallas next year. 

Vanguard joins a growing list of corporations offering workers bonuses to get the shots. That includes health insurer Cigna, which in April declared the country to be "in a race against contagious variants" in offerings its roughly 65,000 U.S. employees $200 each and paid time off to get the shots. 

Kroger, the nation's largest supermarket chain, in February offered $100 to each of its 500,000 workers who got vaccinated, an offer also made by JBS USA and Pilgrim's to nearly 66,000 meat processing workers in January.

Houston Methodist first offered its 26,000 workers an extra $500 in March to get the shots before making them a requirement by July, making it the first medical establishment in the U.S. to issue a vaccine mandate. Dozens of other medical systems have since followed suit. 

Financial companies imposing vaccination requirements include asset management giant BlackRock and Jefferies Financial Group, according to outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas. 

Wall Street's Morgan Stanley, meantime, has banned unvaccinated workers and clients from its offices in New York. 

The American public is divided on whether the federal government should recommend employers require vaccines, with 51% supporting the move and 45% opposed, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey published Wednesday.

Efforts to get still-unvaccinated adults to roll up their sleeves could be difficult, given 75% of those who say they will "definitely not" get vaccinated view the shots as a bigger health risk than getting infected with the coronavirus, KFF found in polling 1,500 adults nationwide July 15 through July 27. 

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, getting vaccinated prevents severe illness, hospitalizations and death. Unvaccinated people should get vaccinated and continue masking until they are fully vaccinated, with the highly contagious Delta variant making the guidance more urgent than ever, the CDC stated.