Claims about remote work are everywhere. This page sticks to what public data can show. Most figures come from the files behind this site: the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) 2020 to 2024 and BLS occupational data.
1. No commute
In the ACS, people who travel to work spend an average of between 17.8 and 32.6 minutes each way, depending on the state (the middle state is about 25 minutes). A full-time remote worker skips that trip. At 25 minutes each way over about 230 working days, that is roughly 200 hours a year, an illustrative calculation, not a measured figure. Check the mean commute for your state or your metro area.
2. Remote work has stuck
Every state saw a higher share working from home in the 2020 to 2024 ACS than in the 2019 ACS 1-year survey. The two estimates come from different survey products, so the exact change is indicative, but the direction is clear across all 52 areas we cover.
3. Many well-paid jobs can be done from home
Dingel and Neiman (2020) found that the jobs that can be done at home tend to be higher paid. Our occupation table lets you check teleworkability alongside BLS median wages for 831 jobs.
4. Wider access to work
Remote work lets people take jobs beyond commuting distance. The share working from home is high in some smaller and rural counties as well as large cities. See the county rankings.
What the data cannot tell you
The ACS does not measure productivity, wellbeing or employer savings. For research on those topics see, for example, the WFH Research project (Barrero, Bloom and Davis) and the BLS American Time Use Survey.