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Work From Home Data Shows Who’s Fully Remote, Hybrid and in Person – The New York Times

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Work From Home Data Shows Who’s Fully Remote, Hybrid and in Person – The New York Times

The American workplace’s experiment with remote work happened, effectively, overnight: With the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, more than half of workers began working from home at least part of the time, according to Gallup. But the shift to a permanent hybrid-work reality has been gradual, with periods of tension as workers across white-collar industries pushed against executives’ return-to-office orders.

Those battles have largely come to an end, and workplaces have reached a new hybrid-work status quo. Roughly one-tenth of workers are cobbling together a combination of work in the office and from home, and a similar portion are working entirely remotely.

This population of hybrid and remote workers in the United States doesn’t quite mirror the larger population of workers: Government data shows they tend to have more education and are more often white and Asian.

Inflation is an existential threat to government programs

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Often it seems like when liberals think of inflation, they downplay it – and don’t see it as the existential threat it is to their ideology. It’s more of a political football to them. But a good way to think about inflation is a government program flat funded at the same amount, under 7% inflation will be halved every seven years.

Inflation automatically trims government spending if appropriations don’t increase at the rate of inflation. Asking for big jumps in tax rates is unpopular in inflationary times, especially when people are already struggling to make ends meet with inflation.

For now, while the economy is good, revenues may keep up with inflation. Indeed these days it seems like many localities are reporting record sales tax collections. But at the same time, markets are slowing as the fed rates increase which really puts a damper on the stock market, which is chilling bonuses and other highly taxable sources of revenue. Inflation is corrosive. Like any form of corrosion, it might lurk in background, but eventually the rust becomes visible. Hardly all good news in the world of tax revenues.

The knife is coming for the back of liberalism, and it won’t be held by the Republicans or Conservatives. It will be held by inflation, which is the killer of government programs that become too expensive to fund are current levels of services.