A new survey of 5,835 U.S. adults finds Americans are much less likely to want to hear from businesses on current events than they were two years ago. Even groups that previously were most receptive to hearing from businesses are considerably less likely now, the Gallup Organization reports.
“The only groups who now express majority support for businesses taking public stances are LGBTQ+ adults (55%), Black adults (54%), and Democrats (53%),” Gallup wrote. And for Democrats, that number is down from 75% in 2022. Meanwhile, Republicans; support for businesses speaking out has increased to 22% from 17%, but they still trail far behind Democrats and Independents in this category.
Gallup’s information comes from the third iteration of the Bentley-Gallup Business in Society Report. It was conducted between April 29 and May 6. That’s about six weeks before Tractor Supply, responding to public pressure fomented by a conservative activist, announced it was eliminating its job roles related to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) movement.
DEI was one of just three out of 13 issues for which a small majority of respondents wanted to hear business opinions. Those three were climate change (54%), mental health (53%), and DEI (53%). But climate change and DEI also had the biggest gap between Democrats and Republicans–57 percentage points. Recent pushback regarding DEI policies at Tractor Supply, John Deere, and Harley-Davidson make it likely that customers’ desire to hear from companies regarding DEI will continue to drop in the year ahead.
What issues should businesses stay away from? The survey found abortion (20%), political candidates (17%) and religion (13%) were categories where customers least want to hear business opinions. And politics was particularly dangerous, as 68% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans said they would be less likely to purchase from a company that endorsed a candidate from the opposing party. Roughly 3 in 10 Independents said they would do the same, regardless of which party’s candidate was endorsed.
