• BLS reported that in 2025, 35 percent of employed people did some or all of their work at home on days they worked.
• BLS reported that 70 percent of employed people did some or all of their work at their workplace on days they worked.
• BLS reported workers with higher education levels were more likely to work at home.
• Remote-work access affects commuting time, gas costs, child care schedules and family routines.
• It remains unclear how much remote-work access differs by income, occupation and employer size in 2026.

Two workers can start the same morning in very different ways. One opens a laptop at the kitchen table after school drop-off. Another packs a lunch, starts the car and pays for gas, child care or both before clocking in on-site.

That divide did not disappear after the pandemic years. Fresh Bureau of Labor Statistics time-use data shows that working from home remains a normal part of the labor market, but it is not available to every worker equally. For many people in restaurants, retail, health care, repair, delivery, cleaning, construction and other service jobs, showing up in person is still part of the job itself.

Remote Work Stayed, but Not for Everyone

The BLS American Time Use Survey shows that remote work did not vanish as offices reopened and employers adjusted. In 2025, 35 percent of employed people did some or all of their work at home on days they worked. At the same time, 70 percent did some or all of their work at their workplace.

Those numbers can overlap because some people split work between home and an outside workplace. That is the reality of hybrid work: a worker may be home some days, in the office others, or divided between job sites depending on the schedule.

But the broader point is clear. Working from home is no longer a temporary emergency measure for many workers. It is part of how the modern labor market operates. The harder question is who gets access to that flexibility and who does not.

The Divide Often Follows the Job

Remote work is not simply a personal preference. It depends heavily on what the job requires. A bookkeeper, software worker, analyst or manager may be able to do at least part of the job from a laptop. A restaurant cook, cashier, nurse, delivery driver, mechanic, cleaner, warehouse worker or electrician usually cannot.

That difference matters because many Main Street jobs are built around physical presence. Food has to be prepared. Shelves have to be stocked. Patients have to be seen. Packages have to be moved. Repairs have to be done where the broken thing is.

BLS also reported that workers with higher education levels were more likely to work at home. That does not mean every higher-education worker has flexibility or every lower-paid worker lacks it. It does show that remote work is tied to the kind of work people are able to get, the credentials many jobs require and the way employers structure schedules.

Flexibility Is Also a Household Cost Issue

For families, remote work is not just about comfort. It can affect money and time. A worker who can skip a commute may spend less on gas, parking or transit. A parent with some schedule flexibility may have an easier time handling school pickup, appointments or a sick child.

For workers who must be on-site, those costs are harder to avoid. A commute can eat into the day before paid work even begins. Child care may have to cover a full shift plus travel time. A schedule change may be harder to absorb when the job requires a person to be physically present at a specific place and time.

That is why remote work should not be treated only as a white-collar lifestyle story. It is also a family-budget story. The worker who cannot work from home may face higher daily costs and less room to maneuver, even while doing work that customers and communities rely on every day.

Employers Are Still Drawing the Lines

The future of remote work will depend partly on employer decisions. Some companies may keep hybrid schedules because they help with hiring, retention or office costs. Others may push workers back on-site because managers value in-person coordination or believe the work is better done together.

Those decisions will not affect all workers equally. Office workers may debate whether they need to be in three days a week instead of two. A grocery clerk, home health aide or restaurant server may have no remote option to debate.

The available data does not answer every question. It does not show exactly how remote-work access differs by income, occupation and employer size in 2026. It also does not prove whether hybrid work lowers family costs over the long term or whether employers will expand or reduce flexibility later this year.

What to Watch Next

The next signals to watch are employer return-to-office policies, labor-market data and commuting-cost trends. If gas prices rise, child care stays expensive or commutes get longer, the gap between workers with flexibility and workers without it may become more visible in household budgets.

Remote work is neither good nor bad for every job. Some work has to happen in person. Some work can be done from anywhere. The important point is that flexibility has become a job benefit, and like many job benefits, it is not evenly shared. For workers and families, that divide can shape the week long before payday arrives.

Reporting note: Reporting draws on Bureau of Labor Statistics time-use data, BLS program materials, explanatory economic reporting, and reviewed background materials. This article was produced with AI-assisted research and reviewed by an editor before publication.