In 2020, the pandemic forced many employers to allow their employees to work from home. We quickly discovered that people could do their jobs to the same degree of rigor (if not better) from their home office. Many companies boasted increased profits and even their best year ever in 2020 and 2021. At the same time, employees saved more money, spent more time with their families, and improved their well-being with remote work.
Despite increased revenue and employee life satisfaction, the majority of employees have since mandated a return to office while conducting mass layoffs just months after recording record profits.
In an era where housing affordability is at record lows and inflation rages throughout the country, you might be wondering just how much money you are missing out on without remote work. Well, you’ll find out exactly that in this post.
Commuting
Time Cost –
How many hours a week do you spend commuting? You can take your salary to find your hourly wage, and from there you multiply the hours spent commuting by your hourly wage. This time you spend devoted to work that is unpaid, and you could spend that time making additional money or bettering your life.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hourly wage in America is $33.09. The average worker spends 10 hours a week on commuting. So the average cost of time cost of working in office per week is $330.09 or . If you multiply the example commuting cost per week by the average work weeks in a year of 35.7, which is a generously conservative estimate of working days in a year, you get a time cost of $11,788.
Transportation –
The average commuter in a major city spends $5-$15 each day commuting with public transportation. This comes out to an average of $2,500 annually.
According to Bankrate, however, the average commuter in America spends approximately $8,466 commuting annually. The costs of commuting are surprising, coming from parking fees, tolls, and tickets to gas and vehicle wear and tear.
Child Care
The cost of childcare in America is one of the largest expenses for parents, and it’s no surprise that few people are having children.
While working remotely, you can expect to save thousands if not tens of thousands on childcare given that the average American spends over $10,000 annually on childcare.
Food and Drink
A recent bloomberg article reported that employees in New York City working in office 3 days a week still saved an average of $5,833 annually by working from home for two days of the week. Employees who work remotely all 5 days of the week could expect to save over $11,000 annually.
Clothing and Accessories
When working remotely, appearance and accessories play a frivolous part in your career advancement. This allows you to save money where you would otherwise spend thousands on keeping up appearances for corporate politics and social events.
Emotional and Health Costs
People who work remotely show increases in life satisfaction and mental health. Both life satisfaction and mental health have been shown to correlate with increased physical health over a person’s life span. It stands to reason, that a person who lives a more satisfactory life will have less risk of severe illness which can carry thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in medical costs.
Particularly, for workers who might otherwise be forced to work in person at a toxic work environment, the privilege to work from home could save them thousands in therapy and medication costs. Not to mention, the emotional baggage from a toxic workplace can leave a person unequipped to secure future employment which could set them back immensely.
Despite all of this, employers still demand you return to office. To understand why read this article next.
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