How Each State Adjusted To Remote Working

After a year of economic and existential uncertainty, there appears to be a glimmer of hope at the end of the pandemic tunnel.

Now society has the opportunity to look back and have a clearer vision of just how much lockdowns impacted the workforce.

Based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s weekly Household Pulse Survey, Commercial Cafe identified how many people telecommuted throughout the pandemic, and which demographics best adjusted to this new normal.

According to the findings, one in three Americans worked from home last year. In 2019, there were an estimated 8.9 million remote workers, but that number jumped 916% to 91 million.

However, the amount of people moving to remote working positions did not impact every state to the same extent. For instance, Rhode Island saw an increase of 1,358% of remote workers from 2019 to 2020.

Following closely behind was Mississippi’s increase of 1,257% and Maryland’s 1,235%.

On the other hand, South Dakota saw the smallest percentage growth by 509%.

In Colorado, the population of digital nomads grew from 274,000 in 2019 to nearly 2 million in 2020. Because the state already had a fairly large percentage of remote workers prior to the pandemic, it’s percentage growth was among the smallest at 619%.

Many of the variations in remote working percentages are largely based on job roles. For example, 62% of adults older than 18 worked remotely in Washington D.C. since much of its economy relies on office-using sectors.