Working from Home in Illinois: Who Can and Does?

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a once-in-a-lifetime disruption of interpersonal activities. Attendance at in-person gatherings, whether for school, work, family, or even worship, was either restricted or prohibited altogether. Today, many societal functions such as education, entertainment, worship, and travel have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. At the same time, many commercial activities—especially white-collar office jobs—remain online or are now “hybrid” (i.e., with both remote and in-person options). This shift from working at office buildings or other job sites to one’s own home (WFH) in some sectors of the economy disrupted labor markets and remains an enduring societal reminder of the pandemic.

This report focuses on Illinois workers and how they adapted to WFH in the wake of the pandemic. We emphasize who works from home and how they do so to facilitate an evidence-based discussion of appropriate policy evolution in the face of massively increased WFH. We believe that both employers and employees are still learning about and adapting to new patterns of WFH. Our aim is to document these patterns.

We first look at national trends in WFH. The second section specifically looks at Illinois with data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). We conclude with an analysis of geographical variation in WFH and its relationship with worker characteristics.