--- title: How U.S. States Are Incentivizing COVID-19 Vaccination description: U.S. states are using free drinks, $100 payments and more to incentivize COVID-19 vaccine. But will rewards boost vaccination rates? canonical: https://time.com/6046238/covid-19-vaccine-incentives/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-05-05T14:37:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:11:44.535Z article:section: Health og:title: Will Incentives Actually Boost COVID-19 Vaccination Rates? og:description: States are offering free beer, savings bonds and more og:url: https://time.com/6046238/covid-19-vaccine-incentives/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc4a893799e7b1997/698a1964e76ad2e97b638dad/bar-during-COVID.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: SAFRICA-HEALTH-VIRUS-ECONOMY-BAR-ALCOHOL og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Will Incentives Actually Boost COVID-19 Vaccination Rates? twitter:description: States are offering free beer, savings bonds and more twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc4a893799e7b1997/698a1964e76ad2e97b638dad/bar-during-COVID.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # From Free Beer to $100 Payments, States Are Incentivizing COVID-19 Vaccination. Will It Work? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=e159589f-228f-4174-8777-1172cd26b3a4&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Making the COVID-19 Vaccine: A 50,000 step process [Watch (HLS stream): Making the COVID-19 Vaccine: A 50,000 step process](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/XGIqdw9j.m3u8) (7:28)  _Published 2021-04-18. Inside BioNTech's quest to vaccinate the world_  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. May 5, 2021 2:37 PM UTC Inside BioNTech's quest to vaccinate the world  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. May 5, 2021 2:37 PM UTC The internet had a field day when Krispy Kreme [in March offered](https://www.today.com/food/krispy-kreme-faces-backlash-free-doughnuts-vaccinated-people-t213204) free donuts to anyone who could prove they’d been vaccinated against COVID-19\. But only a few weeks later, as vaccine supply begins to outpace demand in many places and [daily vaccination rates](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/world/coronavirus-cases-rising-vaccine-rates-dropping.html) tumble across the U.S., states, cities and counties are following the donut chain’s lead. [West Virginia](https://governor.wv.gov/News/press-releases/2021/Pages/COVID-19-UPDATE-Gov.-Justice-reminds-young-West-Virginians-of-savings-bond-incentive.aspx) is offering $100 savings bonds to 16- to 35-year-olds who get vaccinated. [Maryland](https://governor.maryland.gov/2021/05/03/governor-hogan-announces-financial-incentive-program-for-state-employees-to-encourage-covid-19-vaccinations/) will pay fully vaccinated state employees $100\. Breweries participating in [New Jersey’s](https://twitter.com/GovMurphy/status/1389269510612467716) “Shot and a Beer” program are giving out free drinks to legal adults who gets vaccinated in May. [Connecticut](https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/ctdrinksonus-heres-where-you-can-get-free-drinks-in-may/2476294/) and [Washington, D.C.](https://twitter.com/MayorBowser/status/1389636383443197954), are also running free-drink promotions for the inoculated. The New York Yankees and Mets [will reportedly](https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1389973956388704263) offer free tickets to fans who get vaccinated at ballparks before games. Lawmakers in [Harris County, Tex.](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/health/article/Harris-County-considers-freebies-with-vaccines-16136317.php), approved a $250,000 budget for vaccine perks like gift cards and freebies. [Detroit](https://detroitmi.gov/news/city-offers-50-prepaid-cards-good-neighbors-driving-detroiters-get-shots-announces-new-jj-sites) is handing out $50 prepaid debit cards to pre-registered individuals who drive a neighbor to a vaccine clinic. The subtext of these programs is clear: The [lifesaving benefits](https://time.com/5950829/vaccines-covid-19-infection-real-world-study/) of COVID-19 vaccination have not been enough to convince many people to get their shots. And now, if the U.S. wants to reach herd immunity, it may need to get creative. But will a free drink or a $100 payment actually [convince anyone](https://time.com/5951755/how-to-convince-people-to-get-vaccinated/) to get vaccinated? “It gets at the low-hanging fruit”—people who aren’t actively opposed to vaccination but may have been too busy or apathetic to make an appointment, says Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist at the Federation of American Scientists. “The hardcore denialists are not going to budge after being bribed with a beer or a $100 savings bond.” Still, the “low-hanging fruit” population is a large one. [More than half](https://time.com/collection/coronavirus-vaccines-updates/) of the U.S. population has not yet received a single COVID-19 vaccine dose, even though they are now available to adults nationwide—but [U.S. Census Bureau data](https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/household-pulse-survey-covid-19-vaccination-tracker.html) show that less than 15% of U.S. adults identify as vaccine hesitant. A [recent Axios-Harris poll](http://theharrispoll-8654532.hs-sites.com/the-insight-wave-62) found that 31% of unvaccinated Americans say they’ll either “get the vaccine whenever they get around to it” or “will wait awhile and see before getting the vaccine.” That suggests a significant number of people fall somewhere between eager for and opposed to vaccination. Incentives could help bring them in the door. That’s not a new idea. Late last year, Robert Litan, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, [argued](https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/want-herd-immunity-pay-people-to-take-the-vaccine/) that each person who gets vaccinated should be paid $200 up front, and another $800 once the country reaches herd immunity. Former Congressman John Delaney also [called for](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/03/1500-stimulus-checks-for-covid-19-shots-how-one-plan-would-work.html) $1,500 stimulus checks for those who get vaccinated. More recently, Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, [proposed](https://twitter.com/normornstein/status/1389737442622664706?s=27) an even bolder plan: a $10 million lottery, into which each vaccinated adult would be entered once the country reaches 70% vaccine coverage. Past studies have shown that financial incentives can get people to change their health behaviors. One 2019 research review found that monetary rewards [can help motivate smokers](https://www.cochrane.org/CD004307/TOBACCO%5Fcan-rewards-help-smokers-quit-long-term) to quit cigarettes. Other studies have found that incentives [can encourage participation](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4706165/) in employer-sponsored wellness and fitness programs, and [convince people](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160401074408.htm) to eat fruits and vegetables. When it comes to COVID-19, that pattern seems to hold. For example, in [a recent University of California, Los Angeles survey](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/04/upshot/vaccine-incentive-experiment.html), about a third of unvaccinated people said cash payments would make them more likely to get a COVID-19 shot. Democrats seemed especially swayed by the promise of a payout, the survey found, while Republicans tended to be more tempted by relaxed safety standards, like the ability to go maskless in public. Uri Gneezy, a behavioral economist at the University of California, San Diego who studies incentives, cautions that many study participants don’t accurately predict how they would respond to an incentive in the real world—but there is some evidence to suggest cash payments are already encouraging COVID-19 vaccination. West Virginia saw a wave of interest in vaccination after Governor Jim Justice announced the state’s savings bond program, says state COVID-19 Czar Dr. Clay Marsh. “We were encouraged that a lot of people were interested in receiving the incentive,” he says, adding that the state government is open to offering other rewards if this one continues to succeed. There were, however, unintended consequences: It has been so onerous to order and issue bonds one by one that the state may have to switch to direct payments of equivalent value, Marsh says. That’s a tricky proposition, too. Gneezy says cash payments can unintentionally (and falsely, in the case of COVID-19 vaccines) signal that something is dangerous. Imagine if researchers asked you to participate in a medical trial and said they would cover meals and travel during the study period. Now imagine they’d offered a $100,000 payment. That hefty sum would likely set off more alarm bells than the reimbursement offer, Gneezy says. You don’t want people to think, “‘Why do they have to pay me to participate in this? It must be dangerous,’” he says. Something like a free beer or a perk from local businesses might actually be more effective for encouraging COVID-19 vaccination, Gneezy says, because it doesn’t send that signal. Many people also feel positively toward their local businesses, which could add extra motivation. “Even if the government is paying for it, it’s a much better feeling if you get it from a restaurant,” Gneezy says. For incentives to really work, Feigl-Ding says, they should go beyond a single perk. “The best incentives are when you encircle our society with enough benefits if people get vaccinated and enough hoops if they don’t,” he says. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has already done this, to some degree, with its guidance for fully vaccinated individuals. By saying vaccinated people can [travel safely](https://time.com/5952252/covid-19-vaccine-travel/) and go maskless [outdoors](https://time.com/5959349/cdc-masks-outside/) and at [private gatherings](https://time.com/5945003/cdc-guidelines-vaccinated-people/), the CDC has equated vaccination with things people want. Judging from the UCLA survey, that could be quite effective. The problem is, those guidelines are largely unenforceable. To go even further, Feigl-Ding says, the U.S. would need a national system (beyond easily faked paper vaccine cards) that private businesses could use to verify their customers’ immunity. This would allow bars, restaurants and other venues to admit only vaccinated people, as some establishments [in Hong Kong](https://time.com/5958445/vaccine-passports-hong-kong/), for one, have done. Tying freedoms to vaccination status is controversial, though. [Immunity passports](https://time.com/5944165/vaccine-passports-europe/) that allow vaccinated or naturally immune people to travel, dine indoors and attend events are already in use in countries [including Israel](https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/01/1020154/israels-green-pass-is-an-early-vision-of-how-we-leave-lockdown/), but they come with ethical concerns. For one thing, it’s not clear how people who have legitimate medical reasons not to get vaccinated would fit into an immunity passport structure. Some experts also argue immunity passports could exacerbate disparities in places where COVID-19 vaccines are not yet universally available and lead to unintended discrimination. “By stratifying members of society into different tiers of risk of infection and contagiousness, an immunity certification programme may result in unequal treatment of individuals that is based on ethically irrelevant considerations of ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status or similar differential traits,” a group of experts [wrote](https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/99/2/20-280701.pdf) in a recent _Bulletin of the_ _World Health Organization_. But there may be effective hybrid approaches. In a March _BMJ Opinion_ [article](https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/03/16/as-states-reopen-incentivizing-americans-to-vaccinate-against-covid-19-is-an-urgent-priority/), medical student Nakisa Sadeghi and public-health expert Dr. Leana Wen raised possibilities like instituting vaccinated-only hours at private businesses, or requiring unvaccinated people to undergo COVID-19 tests before flying (while allowing vaccinated passengers to skip testing). Such policies could build up enough social pressure to make vaccination attractive, without completely excluding unvaccinated people from public life. Trivial though they may sound, small perks for vaccinated people might help. A single free beer or donut (or [groceries or marijuana or popcorn](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/23/here-are-a-few-of-the-freebies-for-getting-the-covid-vaccine-.html)) may not be enough to convince a given individual to get vaccinated. But creating a culture in which vaccination is associated with benefits—beyond, of course, stopping the spread of a deadly virus that has shut down the world—could be enough to move the needle at a population level. ## Transcript Kind: captions Language: en oh yes yes i'm vaccinated yes Very cool yes yeah yes, I did it was very cool to to know okay I'm gonna be vaccinated with a vaccine that I know really from day one I mean who can tell that they're part of the solution for such a pandemic situation I guess only a few people can say that and I'm really happy to be part of that If you've been vaccinated for COVID-19, chances are that you are benefiting from the science happening here at the German biotech company BioNtech. In December 2020 BioNtech in partnership with Pfizer were the first to earn authorization to distribute their vaccine to the public In March 2021 TIME spent a week watching how BioNtech makes a batch of 8 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine at their new manufacturing plant in Marburg they expect to produce 1 billion doses a year the pace of production has been breakneck from the start So in 2020 I think we worked at every holiday, I can remember Easter Saturday I was standing here pipetting samples to have the results as soon as possible and now 24-hour shifts in this lab are producing vaccines that will be shipped around the world There are approximately 50, 000 steps at the lab it begins with bags of pure mRNA the molecule that tells cells how to make the proteins that launch the immune response and a buffer solution that starts the coding process it emerges in bulk at the other end of the process as a liquid destined for vials most of the machines are named after the engineers that developed the process this one is named after Margaret the first patient in the clinical trials to receive the vaccine but the beating heart of the lab is this machine a container that uses pressurized ethanol to encase the mRNA and special lipid nanoparticles those nanoparticles keep the mRNA protected until it can jumpstart the immune response in the body's cells Speed is essential but inside the lab everyone moves slowly and methodically each of the 50,000 steps is logged by one technician confirmed by a second and only then does it actually happen it's very important that the quality of the product and all the raw materials is perfect here and so no impurities should be present in all raw materials and nothing which we don't want to have in our products one wrong move has the potential to damage the final product if there's any accidental exposure let's say from an ill-timed sneeze the entire batch must be thrown out, all eight million doses that's why everyone wears layers of protection and they even disinfect their gloved hands repeatedly in the lab where we were filming no one had ever told the technicians how many doses were in a batch after that they sprayed another application of disinfectant onto their gloves just to be sure based on our technology and on the antigen we were using no I wasn't I'm very confident in the technology we have until now vaccine development has been a slow process the BioNtech vaccine uses a new technology based on mRNA it is revolutionizing the way vaccines can be produced When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, BioNtech was primarily a cancer vaccine company but by using this new mRNA technology it was able to quickly pivot to a coronavirus vaccine when you look back at any project you've ever done you've always looked back at the start and go wow okay if I'd known that now i could have cut you know a few hurdles out of my way earlier right but you're in a situation where you're doing something especially for us as a smaller company that was unprecedented the second part of the process happens at another factory where vials are filled and packed into boxes for shipment as the cycle comes to an end there's little time to celebrate after all another batch is waiting to be made ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6046238/covid-19-vaccine-incentives/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6046238/covid-19-vaccine-incentives/"},"headline":"From Free Beer to $100 Payments, States Are Incentivizing COVID-19 Vaccination. 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