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The pandemic has changed the way Americans work, with 71 percent of employees who can work from home, doing it. And a little over half want to continue remote working at least part of the time, the U.S. Census Bureau reports.
Working from home appears to be one pandemic change that isn’t going away, but according to a recent WalletHub report, some states are better for remote workers than others.
More than a third of all employed people whose jobs could be done from home actually are working remotely all or most of the time — compared to just 20 percent pre-pandemic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. With that many people working from home, WalletHub wanted to find out what states have the best conditions to enable them.
The WalletHub report compared all 50 states and Washington, D.C., based on 12 metrics within two categories — work environment and living environment. Under work environment, the personal finance website looked at share of remote workers pre-pandemic, the share of potential telecommuters, internet access, and cybersecurity in each state. Under living environment, it examined average home size, electricity costs, access to low-priced internet plans, internet costs, and other metrics. It used data from the Census Bureau, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Global Workplace Analytics, and other sources.
According to the WalletHub findings, these are the best states for working from home:
- Delaware
- North Carolina
- Georgia
- New Hampshire
- Tennessee
- Arizona
- New Jersey
- Texas
- Utah
- Oregon
Click your state in the map to see its ranking.
Regardless of where we live, the pandemic has changed the way we work for good. “I think ultimately the workplace will be more fluid, with employees moving from office space to home work throughout the week and even throughout the day much more than previously seen,” Joseph Mazzola, professor of psychology at Meredith College and one of the experts commenting on the findings, told WalletHub.
Find the full report and rankings at WalletHub.com.