Washington, DC has become America’s work-from-home — as 48.3 percent of employees worked remotely in 2021, new census data revealed.
The latest US Census Bureau results show that DC has paved the way for remote work, closely followed by Seattle with 46.8 percent of employees working from home.
In San Francisco, 45.6 percent of workers worked remotely, while Austin and Atlanta had 38.8 and 38.7 percent, respectively.
Meanwhile, Memphis, El Paso, Texas, and Wichita, Kansas, all bottomed with just 10 percent of employees working from home.
Overall, the U.S. reported that nearly 18 percent of its workforce enjoys teleworking, nearly three times the pre-pandemic number.
“Work and commuting are central to American life, so the widespread adoption of work from home is a defining feature of the Covid-19 pandemic,” Census Bureau statistician Michael Burrows said in a statement Thursday .
“With the number of people primarily working from home tripling in just two years, the pandemic has had a very strong impact on the US commuting landscape.”
The US Census Bureau found that Washington, DC, Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, and Atlanta lead the work-from-home lifestyles, while Memphis, El Paso, Texas, and Wichita, Kansas, account for about 10 percent of the workforce working from home, everyone is lagging behind
After the rise in work-from-home culture during the peak of COVID-19, three times as many people were working from home in 2021 as before the pandemic
Washington, DC nearly mirrored the pre-pandemic national average for remote work, reporting that between 2017 and 2019 about 6 to 7 percent of its workforce was working from home.
Among metro areas with populations over 1 million, the capital ranked third for remote work at 33.1 percent, just behind the San Jose metro area at 34.8 percent and the San Francisco Bay Area at 35.1 percent.
Washington, Maryland, Colorado and Massachusetts were all among the countries with the highest percentages of home workers in the US, with all four states reporting that about 24 percent of the workforce was working from home in 2021.
Mississippi ranks last with just 6.3 percent of employees working from home, up from 3.1 percent in 2019.
Louisiana followed with 8.4 percent and Wyoming reported nearly 8.9 percent.
William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, told the Washington Post that recent work from home correlates with college education.
Washington DC and Seattle both rank among the best educated cities in the country, with 63 percent and 68 percent, respectively, of people ages 25 and older having a bachelor’s degree or higher.
San Francisco, Austin and Atlanta were close behind, joining the latest remote work numbers.
“By and large, these are magnets for younger, well-educated, computer-savvy adults who are often associated with the technology industry and are well-positioned to work from home,” Frey told the Post.
Fear of the coronavirus, which was largely responsible for the surge in work from home, has plummeted. The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that just 6.5 percent of people were working remotely in August due to COVID
This aligns with a Pew Research Center survey earlier this year that found higher-income workers who have a four-year college degree are more likely to work from home than those who don’t have a bachelor’s degree.
The survey found that 65 percent of college graduates are more likely to say their work can be done remotely than 53 percent of their peers.
Fear of the coronavirus, which was largely responsible for the surge in work from home, has plummeted. The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that just 6.5 percent of people were working remotely in August due to COVID.
Higher-income workers who have a four-year college degree are more likely to work from home than those who don’t (right) as more Americans who can work from home have been working from home since the pandemic (left ).
The latest data from the Census Bureau comes from the 2021 American Community Survey, released Thursday.
The survey typically draws on responses from 3.5 million households to provide 11 billion estimates of commute times, internet access, family life, income, educational attainment, disabilities, military service and employment each year.
The estimates help allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending. The response rates have improved significantly from 2020 to 2021.