Commerce and transportation departments top US federal vaccine mandate table
Data released by the US Office of Management and Budget has revealed 96.5% compliance with President Joe Biden’s mandate for federal employees to be vaccinated against Covid-19, with the Department of Transportation and the Department of Commerce top performers.
According to the data, these two top performing federal departments achieved over 99% compliance with the mandate – 99.6% for the Department of Transportation and 99.4% for the Department of Commerce.
Compliance is defined as the percentage of agency employees covered by a vaccination requirement with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccination, or with a pending or approved exception or extension.
Three other departments or agencies had compliance scores over 99%: the Agency for International Development (99.1%), Small Business Administration (99.1%), and the Office of Personnel Management (99.0%).
The lowest compliance level is recorded at the Department of the Interior (94.7%) and Department of Homeland Security (including the coast guard) at 95.1%.
See the full list of US federal department and agency COVID-19 vaccination rates
The data also ranked departments based on the percentage of their workforces to have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The Agency for International Development achieved the highest percentage of coverage (97.8%), while the Agriculture Department came bottom, with 86.1%.
Although the Department of Veterans Affairs had a 98.0% compliance percentage, it had a 87.8% vaccination percentage. Other agencies with a low vaccination percentage include the Social Security Administration (87.7%) and the Department of the Interior (88.3%).
In a statement, the White House said that 92.0% of federal employees having received at least one COVID-19 vaccination dose, adding: “Government has shown, these requirements work: they increase vaccination rates – leading to a safer, more productive, and efficient workforce. They’re good for workers, good for businesses, and good for the country.”
The deadline for federal employees to get vaccinated passed on 22 November, following the executive order signed by US president Joe Biden in September announcing the mandate. The mandate has since been challenged, and the White House has advised that agencies offer non-compliant federal employees a week of counselling to encourage them to get vaccinated, having warned of possible suspensions and removals for continued non-compliance.
However, it has been reported by Government Executive that the directors of the Office of Personnel Management Director, Kiran Ahuja, and the Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director for Management, Jason Miller, have instructed agencies to wait until January 2022 to enforce non-compliance penalties.
The White House meanwhile said that it would continue to process vaccination information and exception requests from federal staff, including new hires. “Each step of this process will result in more Federal employees becoming vaccinated,” it said.
Full list of US federal department and agency COVID-19 vaccination rates
| Agency | Agency-wide compliance percentage | Agency-wide vaccination percentage |
| Agency for International Development | 99.1% | 97.8% |
| Department of Agriculture | 95.6% | 86.1% |
| Department of Commerce | 99.4% | 93.9% |
| Department of Defense | 96.1% | 93.4% |
| Department of Education | 98.2% | 95.0% |
| Department of Energy | 98.8% | 91.0% |
| Department of Health and Human Servicesiii | 98.8% | 96.4% |
| Department of Homeland Security | 95.1% | 88.9% |
| Department of Housing and Urban Development | 98.3% | 92.7% |
| Department of the Interior | 94.7% | 88.3% |
| Department of Justice | 97.4% | 89.8% |
| Department of Labor | 98.0% | 93.3% |
| Department of State | 97.4% | 96.1% |
| Department of Transportation | 99.6% | 90.6% |
| Department of Treasury | 98.3% | 91.5% |
| Department of Veterans Affairs | 98.0% | 87.8% |
| Environmental Protection Agency | 95.3% | 92.1% |
| General Services Administration | 98.9% | 92.9% |
| National Aeronautics and Space Administration | 95.6% | 90.7% |
| National Science Foundation | 98.6% | 96.2% |
| Nuclear Regulatory Commission | 97.6% | 92.4% |
| Office of Personnel Management | 99.0% | 90.7% |
| Small Business Administration | 99.1% | 90.0% |
| Social Security Administration | 95.0% | 87.7% |
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
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