COVID-19 vaccine incentives in the United States (2021)
COVID-19 vaccine incentives in the United States in 2021 included state lotteries in Ohio, New York, and North Carolina, and a July 29, 2021 Treasury statement calling on state and local governments to offer $100 payments from American Rescue Plan funds (U.S. Department of the Treasury, July 29, 2021).
This page is the cross-state record of COVID-19 vaccine incentives. The child pages, already published, are the state lotteries, New York State (Vax & Scratch and Excelsior Pass), New York City (site rewards and Key to NYC), and the May 2021 food offer at city mobile vaccine buses. It sits under US COVID-19 public health campaigns and messaging (2020–2022).
Programs by issuer
| Program | Issuer | Date in the source | What the source says was offered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ohio Vax-a-Million | Ohio Department of Health, with the Ohio Lottery; described by the Governor on May 12, 2021 | Address May 12, 2021; office recap May 13; opt-in details May 17; five announcements, last one June 23 | Weekly drawings of $1 million for vaccinated adults 18 and older, plus a scholarship drawing for ages 17 and under |
| New York Vax & Scratch | Office of the Governor of New York | Announced May 20, 2021; sites May 24–28; extended May 31–June 4 | A free $20 scratch-off ticket, grand prize $5 million, for a first Pfizer dose or the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at listed state sites |
| North Carolina Summer Cash Drawing | N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, N.C. Education Lottery, and the State Education Assistance Authority, under Executive Order 219 | Rules dated June 10, 2021; first drawing June 23, 2021; governor's winner release June 28, 2021; drawings through August 4, 2021 | Four $1 million adult drawings and four $125,000 education awards for ages 12–17; a dose on or after June 10 entered an adult twice |
| National Month of Action | The White House | Fact sheet dated June 2, 2021 | A month of outreach toward a July 4 vaccination goal, with private incentives listed at Vaccines.gov/incentives.html |
| New York City mobile-bus food voucher | Shake Shack, with the NYC Mayor's Office | Company terms dated to Thursday, May 13; fries through 11:00 p.m. Eastern on June 12, 2021 | A free single-burger voucher at a city mobile vaccine bus, while supplies lasted; separately, free fries with a purchased burger or chicken sandwich on proof of vaccination |
| $100 payment call | The President, stated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury | Treasury policy statement, July 29, 2021 | A call for state, territorial, and local governments to provide $100 to each newly vaccinated person, using Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds |
Research on effects
Two studies of the Ohio lottery disagree. This page reports both and does not pick one.
Walkey, Law, and Bosch, in JAMA in 2021, compared adult vaccination rates in Ohio with rates in states that had not announced a lottery. They wrote that after May 12, 2021, adult vaccination rates did not significantly increase in Ohio. The Boston University summary of that paper says the authors' results "suggest that state-based lotteries are of limited value in increasing vaccine uptake."
Sehgal, in the American Journal of Medicine in 2021, used a synthetic control and concluded that an additional 114,553 Ohioans received a first vaccination in the window the paper measured, with a 95 percent confidence interval of 49,094 to 180,012. The paper dates the announcement it studies to May 13, 2021. The governor's address in the WCMH transcript is May 12. The two dates are the ones those sources print.
Neither paper is a finding about vaccine safety. This page does not answer medical questions.
Sources
- Ohio, New York, and North Carolina releases cited on the lotteries page.
- American Presidency Project, White House fact sheet, June 2, 2021. presidency.ucsb.edu.
- U.S. Department of the Treasury, policy statement on vaccine incentives, July 29, 2021. home.treasury.gov.
- Shake Shack posted terms and the May 13, 2021 CBS briefing, cited on the food offers page.
- Allan J. Walkey, Anica Law, and Nicholas A. Bosch, "Lottery-Based Incentive in Ohio and COVID-19 Vaccination Rates," JAMA 326, no. 8 (2021): 766–767, doi:10.1001/jama.2021.11048. jamanetwork.com.
- N. K. R. Sehgal, "Impact of Vax-a-Million Lottery on COVID-19 Vaccination Rates in Ohio," American Journal of Medicine 134, no. 11 (2021). pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
United StatesUS state COVID-19 vaccine lotteries (2021)United StatesNew York State COVID-19 vaccine incentives (2021), including Excelsior PassUnited StatesNew York City COVID-19 vaccine incentives (2021), including Key to NYCUnited StatesNew York City food offers tied to COVID-19 vaccination (May 2021)