Most US Workers Would Take Pay Cut to Work From Home, Poll Shows

55% of fully remote US workers say they're willing to take a pay cut to keep working from home, a poll from The Washington Post and Ipsos finds. 

The study polled 1,148 full-time and part-time workers between the ages of 18 to 64 to understand their attitudes toward commuting and offices in an almost entirely digital work landscape.

Out of the 188 fully remote workers polled, over half (55%) said they would happily take a lower-paying job to keep working from home. 45% of the fully remote workers also said however that they're open to commute if they were offered a higher-paying job.

And unsurprisingly, 71% of workers aged 18-26 say working from home is their top priority when it comes to looking for their next job.

The bottom line is that well over half of the US workforce values remote working benefits over salary expectations. 

Elon Musk: Remote work is "morally wrong"

These findings come during a turbulent time in 9 to 5 culture. 

Companies like Amazon and Salesforce have issued mandates for their workers to return to the office, with executives believing in-person work increases productivity and improves collaboration. 

Elon Musk, Tesla and Twitter CEO, took this one step further; describing remote work as "morally wrong" and said remote workers need to "get off the godd*mn moral high horse."

But many workers are pushing back. Amazon employees in Seattle are planning to stage a walk out later this month over the company's 'oppressive' work from home directive, while corporate workers at Disney and Starbucks have signed petitions urging executives to reverse their return to office policies. 

Majority of this push back comes from rampant inflation in the US, as well as the cost-of-living crisis across the pond in the UK. Petrol and public transport prices have both skyrocketed in the last five years, and daily lunches aren't as cheap as they were pre-Covid. 

What do you think about office work? Do you think remote work promotes inactivity and a lack of collaboration? Or does a return to the office incur unnecessary costs and commuting times for the modern worker? Let us know in the comments.