Did a poll asking people if they’d be willing to do that and got this response.

Yes at 14%
No at 38%
Yes, but not over 5% at 48%.

Couple thousand voted on that and it seems one in six people are willing to lose over 5% of their salary for work from home and nearly half would take something under 5%.

Is work from home worth losing over 5% though?

First thing to look at is commute time.

The national average commute time to work is 26.5 minutes one way, coming to 53 minutes a day.

That’s 4.4 hours in a work week.
17.6 hours in a month.
211 hours in a year.

211 hours unpaid for currently.
$23 an hour is the median American wage.

$4,853 a year in unpaid for wages, factoring in commute times.

That is over 10% of the median salary in the US unpaid for.

Next up, just the basic cost to get to work.

47% of Americans spend $10-25 a week driving to work.
30% spend $25-50 on public transit.

Let’s just take the lowest ends of these numbers for a moment.

$10 a week, $520 a year.
Over 1% of the median annual salary.

$25 a week, $1,300 a year.
Over 2% of the median annual salary.

Next up, the high end.

$25 for drivers, again $1,300 a year.
2% the median salary.

$50 a week, $2,600 a year.
4% the median salary.

That is below 5%, but also factoring in things such as insurance, damage to a car and odds of buying things commuting, the number surpasses 5%.

This makes a clear case a 5% salary cut for work from home would be worth it.

And people shouldn’t have to choose between a salary cut and work from home.

Many companies are getting more efficient at it and it’s saving a ton of money on things such as office space, while reducing issues hiring new staff.

So keep work from home and ideally don’t cut wages, even if it’s worth some salary loss.