October Buzz: Americans Want Employers to Speak Out — Sometimes
October 2025
More than half of American adults say companies should take public stands on current issues. At 51%, it’s only slightly more than half but significant nonetheless, since that represents a 13-percentage-point increase since 2024.
It’s noteworthy, too, in that it signals a bounce back from a negative trend that started after 2022, when 48% of those surveyed supported American businesses.
These are among the findings of the 2025 Bentley University-Gallup Business in Society survey of 3,007 U.S. adults conducted online in May. “Americans are now closely divided [with] 49% saying businesses should not take a stance,” Gallup reports. “In 2023 and 2024, Americans leaned more decisively toward the ‘no’ position.”
Partisanship, of Course
There’s some partisanship operating here, as in so much of American life these days. Democrats are “slightly” more in favor of companies taking public stands on sometimes controversial matters than Republicans, according to Gallup.
“Solid majorities of self-identified Democrats, Asian Americans, Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, younger adults and female respondents now say businesses should take a public stance,” Gallup reports. “In contrast, less than half of older, White and male respondents, and about a third of self-identified Republicans, agree — although support grew among these groups as well.”
OK, but what issues are companies supposed to speak out about, exactly?
Bentley-Gallup asked respondents about 12 different areas, including climate change, health care, immigration, DEI, LGBTQ+ issues and international conflicts. Support increased for speaking out publicly across all 12 areas, with “notable increases over the past year for businesses speaking out on immigration, free speech and international conflicts.”
Issues Close to Home
However, when it comes to employers communicating their stances on current events to employees, the survey found a majority (60%) would prefer that they do not. More than half of survey participants want their bosses to be candid and explicit about only four of the 12 issues, which are those that “directly relate to matters employers typically deal with in hiring, workplace policies and employee benefits.” These include mental health (62%), health care issues (62%), DEI (54%) and free speech (52%). They are less likely to care as passionately about the employer’s opinions on gun laws (29%), international conflicts (26%), abortion (21%) and religion (17%).
Gallup concludes, “Public support for corporate activism is rising again,” but with understandable limits. Employees “want companies to take stances on social and political issues” but are “more cautious about employers engaging in current events internally, except when it comes to topics squarely within the employer’s sphere of influence.” That would explain employees’ eagerness to know how the company stands on an environmental issue, for example, where its own operations are involved.
Majorities of Americans call it “extremely important for companies to offer quality health care to their employees (73%), support their communities (61%), operate sustainably (60%), provide mental health support (58%) and avoid major pay gaps between CEOs and regular employees (55%)
All this should come as no great surprise to Impact readers. The Council’s 2024 Public Affairs Pulse survey of 2,205 adults also documented growing support for corporate engagement. Conducted in early September 2024, the top social issues Americans wanted companies to engage in were supporting the environment/sustainability (66%), ending hunger (64%), ending discrimination by race (62%) and ending discrimination by gender (61%). Support in each of these categories increased by three to six percentage points from the prior year.
Unfortunately, the Gallup survey found that only 36% of respondents believe businesses are doing an “excellent” or “good” job in any of these areas that it examined. Even if they are, they don’t seem to be doing an adequate job communicating this fact in the workplace.
“
Gallup concludes, “Public support for corporate activism is rising again,” but with understandable limits.
More News & Resources
Explore how organizations are reinforcing their commitments to civic engagement and community involvement to future proof their business and advance priorities.