The Number of People Primarily Working From Home Tripled Between 2019 and 2021
U.S. Census Bureau releases new 2021 American Community Survey 1-year estimates for all geographic areas with populations of 65,000 or more.
SEPT. 15, 2022 – Between 2019 and 2021, the number of people primarily working from home tripled from 5.7% (roughly 9 million people) to 17.9% (27.6 million people), according to new 2021 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Nearly half (48.3%) of workers in the District of Columbia worked from home, the highest percentage of home-based workers among states and state equivalents in 2021. In addition to the District of Columbia, states with the highest percentage of home-based workers were Washington (24.2%), Maryland (24.0%), Colorado (23.7%) and Massachusetts (23.7%). (These four states were not statistically different from each other.) 2021 marked the highest number and percentage of people working from home recorded since the ACS began in 2005.
“Work and commuting are central to American life, so the widespread adoption of working from home is a defining feature of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Michael Burrows, statistician in the Census Bureau’s Journey-to-Work and Migration Statistics Branch. “With the number of people who primarily work from home tripling over just a two-year period, the pandemic has very strongly impacted the commuting landscape in the United States.”
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