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The push by employers to get American workers back into the office appears to be working.

Fewer than 26% of US households still have someone working remotely at least one day a week, a sharp decline from the early-2021 peak of 37%, according to the two latest Census BuAdd Newreau Household Pulse Surveys. Only seven states plus Washington, DC, have a remote-work rate above 33%, the data shows, down from 31 states and DC mid-pandemic.

The reversal reflects the continued push by many employers to get staff to return to offices. Remote employees have been blamed for dwindling profits and costing cities billions, and fears of a recession have eroded their ability to demand the telework perks they won early in the pandemic, when the labor market sat squarely in their favor. Some companies, like Goldman Sachs Group Inc., now expect a return to five days in the office, though boardroom disagreement abounds — nearly three of out four organizations see RTO as the topic most likely to foment leadership conflict.

At the state level, the data shows all 50 have seen work-from-home rates drop from their pandemic highs. But the unevenness in their rates of decline suggests the trend doesn't have one cohesive explanation, and is instead the result of a hodgepodge of migration, socio-economic, gender and race factors, and possibly even politics — Democratic states tend to have higher remote-work rates than Republican ones.

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