The portion of individuals working primarily from dwelling in Washington, D.C., final 12 months was the very best of any massive metropolis within the nation, with practically half of staff 16 and older working remotely, about seven instances greater than earlier than the pandemic.
Washington, D.C
Nearly half of D.C. residents worked from home in 2021, more than any other large U.S. city, census data show
Within the District, 48.3 p.c of staff labored remotely in 2021, in contrast with round 6 or 7 p.c between 2017 and 2019. Second on the record of the largest 50 cities was Seattle (46.8 p.c), adopted by San Francisco (45.6 p.c), Austin (38.8 p.c) and Atlanta (38.7 p.c).
Amongst metro areas over 1 million in inhabitants, the Washington, D.C., area ranked third in distant work, at 33.1 p.c, just under the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas (35.1 p.c and 34.8 p.c, respectively).
The info got here from the 2021 American Group Survey, which offers annual estimates based mostly on questionnaires stuffed out by 3.5 million households. Final 12 months marked the very best quantity and proportion of individuals working from dwelling recorded for the reason that ACS started in 2005, the bureau stated.
Of the 5 high massive counties for working from dwelling, three had been within the Washington metro space, with the District within the high slot and Fairfax and Montgomery counties fourth and fifth, at 37.2 and 37.1 p.c, respectively.
All of the top-ranked cities, counties and metro areas noticed radical will increase in contrast with earlier than the pandemic, when the portion of individuals working from dwelling in these locations was between round 5 and 10 p.c.
Between 2019 and 2021, the variety of individuals working from dwelling tripled from 5.7 p.c (round 9 million individuals) to 17.9 p.c (27.6 million individuals), in line with the brand new information. States with the very best proportion of home-based staff had been Washington (24.2 p.c), Maryland (24.0 p.c), Colorado (23.7 p.c) and Massachusetts (additionally 23.7 p.c).
The share of individuals working from dwelling correlates strongly with the portion of staff who’re school graduates, in line with an evaluation that William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Establishment, did for The Washington Put up. In keeping with the brand new census information, 63 p.c of individuals 25 and older within the District have a bachelor’s diploma or increased, making it the second-most-highly-educated metropolis after Seattle, at 68.3 p.c.
That quantity displays a unbroken enhance within the District’s college-educated inhabitants lately; in 2016 it was 56.8 p.c, up from 45.9 p.c in 2006 and 33.3 p.c in 1990. (Nationwide, 35 p.c of individuals 25 and older have a bachelor’s diploma or increased, up from 33.1 p.c in 2019.) The subsequent three most highly-educated cities within the nation are San Francisco, Austin and Atlanta, correlating with the very best remote-work cities.
“These are by and huge magnets for youthful, well-educated, computer-savvy adults usually tied to the tech trade who’re properly positioned to earn a living from home,” Frey stated.
The share of individuals with school levels varies extensively by race within the District, the place 93 p.c of White persons are school graduates, by far the very best portion for a big metropolis (Atlanta and San Francisco are second and third, at 80.4 and 79.5 p.c, respectively). Amongst Black residents the portion drops to 33.7 p.c (seventh among the many 50 greatest U.S. cities); amongst Hispanics it’s 57.4 p.c (first among the many greatest cities); and amongst Asians it’s 79.9 p.c (second after Atlanta).
Greater than 1 / 4 of Black individuals within the District, 27.7 p.c, reside beneath the poverty line, in contrast with 5.1 p.c of Whites, 10.5 p.c of Hispanics and 16.1 p.c of Asians, in line with the brand new information; the general fee for the town is 16.5 p.c. (Nationwide, the parts are 9.5 p.c for Whites, 21.8 p.c for Blacks, 17.5 p.c for Hispanics and 10.2 p.c for Asians.)
However within the higher metropolitan area, the portion of Black individuals residing in poverty is 13.2 p.c. Black individuals within the metro space have a median family earnings of $81,696, placing it second amongst metro areas nationwide.
The brand new information additionally mirrored a slowdown within the variety of foreign-born individuals in america, with the previous few years reflecting the smallest good points for the reason that Nineteen Seventies. Between 2011 and 2017, the nation gained between 400,000 and 1.4 million foreign-born residents per 12 months, however from 2018 to 2021, the good points fell to round 200,000 a 12 months or decrease, a results of extra restrictive immigration insurance policies beneath President Donald Trump together with the pandemic, Frey stated.
“On condition that our inhabitants development is nearly zero, one thing’s going to want to vary,” he stated. “That’s going to proceed, and it’s not only a pandemic downside.”