Remote work can also be a source of socioeconomic inequality

All: this article deserves a better discussion than it&#x27;s gotten so far. It&#x27;s a rare thing: a new angle on one of the absolutely most-discussed topics here. That&#x27;s interesting, regardless of where our reactions all land on agree&#x2F;disagree, like&#x2F;dislike, us&#x2F;them and so on.<p>If you&#x27;re going to add comments to this thread, can you please engage with the specifics of the article?

Not all work is equally valuable. Not all work is equally doable. Some work requires decades patience and sacrifice before one is competent enough to perform it. Some work is physically or cognitively beyond the vast majority of the population.<p>It doesn&#x27;t make sense to expect all jobs to have all the same benefits and privelegdes. Even if we pretend that all humans are fundamentally equal in ability, inequality will always exist, so long as humans are free to make choices in a world of finite resources and time.<p>Moreso, inequality is not intrinsically bad, for it is a great motivator for the kind of innovation that raises the common floor, which is the more important measure.<p>If you&#x27;re able to eat, drink, and shelter during a global pandemic, while your entire country is on lockdown, and your economy has crawled to a standstill, then you&#x27;re in a pretty good place.

&gt;&gt; &quot;Benefits not available to low-income workers&quot;<p>A more accurate statement would be &quot;Benefits not available to low-income <i>jobs</i>&quot;<p>There are plenty of jobs that simply cannot be done remotely. The more physical the job, the less it can be done remotely. A meat packer at a meat packing plant cannot work from home. A construction worker cannot build houses from a desk. (I&#x27;d add nursing, but a large amount of those jobs is paperwork that often can be done remotely.) And there are some very highly-paid jobs that cannot be done from home. Pilots cannot pilot from home (of the few that still have jobs). Surgeons cannot cut. Mechanics cannot turn their wrenches from afar.<p>And all the IT people. Some of them can login remotely to diagnose network and service problems, but someone always has to have hands on hardware. There is yet to be a robot that can replace a failed cooling fan on a law firm&#x27;s NAS device. Some, many, of these people are in fact making trips to <i>other peoples&#x27; homes</i> to service the equipment that allows them to work at home.

One thing that I find curious about the initial chart of data from Canadian workers (percent who worked some hours at home by income group) is that while the trend is clearly more hours worked at home with more income, I&#x27;m not so sure that&#x27;s an unambiguously good thing.<p>&quot;Are you able to work an entire day of your 40-hour workweek from home?&quot; is a very different question from &quot;Are you able to work your 45th through 60th hour of work from your home?&quot;<p>Pre-pandemic, if I&#x27;d been asked whether I could work some of my scheduled hours from home, I&#x27;d have answered &quot;yes, absolutely&quot; despite <i>additionally</i> spending 40-50 hours per week in the office.<p>Sometimes, I think it would be refreshing to do something like airline pilot where I&#x27;d probably enjoy the job overall but that it was pretty clear there&#x27;s no expectation that I&#x27;d fly an airliner in my non-work time.

It seems from the comments that a lot of the readers here equate &quot;let&#x27;s look at socioeconomic inequality&quot; with &quot;let&#x27;s make sure everyone has the same socioeconomic outcome by bringing down the people who earn more.&quot; This is... a leap not found in this article. The idea is to make sure that we realize the knock-on effects of changes in the workforce &#x2F; society and take measures to make sure people who have the ability to succeed aren&#x27;t sidelined because of it. Seriously, some of these remedies should be fairly uncontroversial here:<p>-Giving people computers<p>-Making sure people have access to broadband<p>-Looking at industries with low income workers and seeing if the governments can nudge them into the WFH model, so they can start to realize some of the positive outcomes that presents, which in some cases would be <i>far more valuable to low-income workers</i>. Imagine if a single mother working for $20k a year at an office could do that work from home?<p>This topic is ripe for inventive ways to use technology to raise up individuals who have been traditionally left out. But for some reason the 6-fig crowd is reacting negative to a headline that uses the term &quot;socioeconomic inequality.&quot;

The most interesting part (to me) is not touched on in the article - if expensive jobs can be done remotely from Gary, Indiana, they&#x27;re not going to go to Gary natives who are currently underemployed, but to the same small crowd of well-off people who are just going to <i>move</i> to Gary, driving prices there up. I think this is the inequality that is interesting and matters.

The suggestion that governments can close the remote working gap is not very well thought out. A large percentage of low income work is service work that requires physical presence. You can’t make the typical burger joint remote friendly without automating all the jobs away.

Since there is no limit on the ceiling, but there is a limit to the floor, things that increase economic opportunity tend to decrease equality. Things that reduce economic opportunity tend to increase equality.<p>See e.g. Steven Pinker:<p>&quot;...the most effective ways of reducing inequality are epidemics, massive wars, violent revolutions and state collapse.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.the-tls.co.uk&#x2F;articles&#x2F;twenty-questions-steven-pinker&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.the-tls.co.uk&#x2F;articles&#x2F;twenty-questions-steven-p...</a>

Would it be similar to say &quot;factories worsen inequality by mostly helping high-income earners&quot; (consider England during the Industrial Revolution)? New technology increases our productivity.

Looking at it just now, this appears to be the money quote:<p><i>Given its potential benefits, telecommuting is an attractive option to many. Studies have shown a substantial number of workers would even agree to a lower salary for a job that would allow them to work from home. The appeal of remote work can be especially strong during times of crisis, but also exists under more normal circumstances.<p>The ongoing crisis therefore amplifies inequalities when it comes to financial and work-life balance benefits.</i><p>This seems to be saying that workers often prefer remote work, and perhaps even more so at present. But, they&#x27;re trading salary away for a work environment they prefer, which (by definition) lowers their monetary compensation, which is bad.<p>Not sure what to make of that.

I wonder how much money would be saved by governments encouraging remote work. Less road repairs and widening highways for commuters, less concentration of consumer spending in cities that double in population during daytime.<p>My small city&#x27;s trying to revitalize itself, but the small number of well-paying jobs is starving new businesses of customers.<p>The problem is, my small city would only benefit if it can convince <i>outside</i> corps to offer remote. But what leverage would my city have?

I have yet to hear the phrase &quot;making city money while living in the country&quot;, but we should see an uptick in personal utopias as the 21st century workforce matures in this new era.<p>In the age of logistics, it is not inconceivable that manufacturing labor will also have the opportunity to have autonomous vehicles deliver the inventory needed to support the livelihood of residents such as garment workers and others with WFH options.<p>&quot;Work on Demand&quot; has probably been accelerated by decades and would be a more viable option than many of the UBI proposals floating around to reverse mass unemployment in the long-term.<p>All it takes is one IKEA set to start a chain reaction. Send it to worker 1 to assemble, worker 2 to disassemble and worker 3 to refurb&#x2F;repackage and send it out again.<p>I say that in jest, but they could have the white collar, blue collar and t-shirt (creatives) workers all on a positive financial trajectory at the same time if they manage the next wave of innovation and any real or manufactured crises well.

Alright, narrower spreads in economic inequality appears to connote greater overall happiness in the measured society. Perhaps attributable to the averaging and not representative of the outliers, or demonstrable of modality, but that might be a separate argument. Northern European countries are famed for ranking near the top. The degree to which a society is advanced can be measured in part by how it treats its most disadvantaged members. And in the long run, we help ourselves by helping each other.<p>But (playing the devil&#x27;s advocate here) I&#x27;m interested in equalizing opportunity, not in equal outcome and artificial fairness.<p>If this notion is ridiculous, would somebody care to enlighten &#x2F; disillusion?

I can definitely see this. I barely missed a beat while a couple months like this presumably wiped out a ton of 3 month rainy day funds out there.

This is more evidence that the market clearing price for labor is irrational and inefficient.<p>Most workers are not compensated for (a) the surplus value they generate, or (b) the risk they bear in work activities.<p>This article goes to point (b). Point (a) is evident in [1], and is far more problematic as it leads to consolidated control over resources (physical and the ability to direct the daily activities of others).<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;onlinelibrary.wiley.com&#x2F;doi&#x2F;abs&#x2F;10.1111&#x2F;jofi.12909" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;onlinelibrary.wiley.com&#x2F;doi&#x2F;abs&#x2F;10.1111&#x2F;jofi.12909</a>

It seems that for the most part these jobs require: low technical skill, physical presence, and low amounts of flexibility. These also seem like the types of jobs where a longer work week leads to more productivity, in that more &quot;widgets&quot; are produced (length of the work week is another hot topic here on HN). But these also seem like the jobs that are more vulnerable to automation.<p>I&#x27;ll give some examples. I&#x27;m seeing entire movie theaters remove the box office and use touch screens. This can reduce the number of needed staff by 20%. We see similar things at grocery stores (a single person can man 6+ registers, just needing to check an ID, which this can probably be automated soon). Clothing sales are moving online to places like Amazon. Etc.<p>So how do we create a more fair economy? One where everyone has the opportunity to rise into jobs that they want? Get the education they need for that job? Do we let X% of the population just not be productive but still get a basic income? What&#x27;s that do for mental health? Do we create meaningless jobs that are just jobs for the sake of a job? What&#x27;s that do for mental health? How do we provide equal opportunities (not equal outcomes) for everyone? More importantly, how do we develop that kind of culture?

Is there some sort of advantage to high income workers being forced to drive to an office every day?

TFARE (The Following Are Roughly Equivalent):<p>- (a) Jobs that can be done over the Internet<p>- (b) Jobs that require specialized education and&#x2F;or high general intelligence (so not everyone can do them)<p>- (c) Jobs that pay high salaries<p>Proof: (a) &lt;-&gt; (b) because both of these describe jobs dealing with information-like stuff (writing, websites, software). (b) &lt;-&gt; (c) by law of supply and demand. QED<p>Question is, what&#x27;s our society going to do with the masses of people who <i>just aren&#x27;t capable</i> of doing the kind of job many of us have?

The whole thing is biased.<p>If the so called &quot;low-income workers&quot; don&#x27;t have this benefit (imagine: workers on system relevant jobs such as medicine, bakery, logistics, grocery), it means they deserve a higher pay than the actual one they receive.<p>These jobs are equally-if-not-more-relevant than jobs in other fields and must not be always labelled as &quot;poor jobs&quot;.<p>Not all the jobs require a computer in this world. The ones who have to stay on place must receive a higher raise.

Can someone help me understand this? The thesis is that remote work is making inequality worse, but all they show is an association between working remote and income. Where&#x27;s the thesis coming from? Even if it was a causal association, with more remote work causing higher incomes, that seems like a good thing.

What? On the contrary, remote work levels inequality by allowing workers from low-income regions to take high-income remote positions.

this is a poorly thought article and full of strawmen<p>Inequality between White collar work and blue collar work has existed for centuries and there is no evidence that remote work is making it either better or worse. Their interpretation of their graph is a strawman: office work is obviously easier to remotize.<p>Inequality stems from supply&#x2F;demand . There are non-remote workers on the high end of the spectrum (doctors, athletes etc) and there is a vast crowd of low paid workers that work remotely (freelancers, support phone centers etc). The fact that globalization increasing inequality is not news but, if anything, it affects remote workers more.<p>Remote workers are also facing inequality, e.g. they are paid less if they live outside the bay area.<p>If anything, by reducing the disparities in cost of living and housing everywhere, remote work is probably helping to reduce overall inequality. It will also move businesses (and their blue collar workers) away from traffic-heavy city centers and closer to where the remote workers are (their homes).<p>Remote work can also be more costly in many ways: e.g. heating and A&#x2F;C for houses is costlier than heating a shared office building during work hours. Personally, i spend more on food because i have no office cafeteria nearby. The benefits are mostly in quality of life and in having control of your life.

&gt; The possibility of working remotely isn’t available to everyone, with one Canadian study estimating that only 44 per cent of jobs are compatible with telecommuting. Remote work is particularly common among university graduates, managers and professionals, but its practice also depends on the sector and the nature of the job. Finance, for example, compared to manufacturing, is more suitable to remote work. Consequently, many workers are deprived of an alternative that allows them to continue working during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.<p>This is due to a couple of different things. Our system for organizing production is outdated. The joint stock corporation is an outdated system. We need something more akin to DAOs. Then employees will be as equally empowered.<p>Additionally, the fiat monetary system encourages parasitism and inefficiency. With sound money, everyone can benefit. Unlike the current monetary system we have in place.<p>Cryptocurrency is a poor store of value, but I think is valuable in denoting ownership of something. If you’re given tokens in a DAO, it should be a token or coin that denotes ownership rather than a store of value. This way those who take on the lion’s share of risk, whether they are early investors or employees, will be rewarded the most. It also flattens the management structure substantially. Not much room in a DAO for parasites. Because you need to put your money where your mouth is, so to speak.<p>In summary, this inequality stems from outdated systems that need to be replaced. As I’ve stated in many previous comments, capitalism is the purest filter with which to perceive reality. There is no bullshit allowed. DAOs &gt; corporations, crypto &gt; stock ownership agreement.

The word inequality is an oxymoron. If you were to wave a magic wand and redistribute wealth you would by definition make inequality because you would transfer wealth from those who create more value to those who don’t. Your end result would be “inequality”.

Twitter encourages wfh. Let&#x27;s do as much as we can from home.

All economic activity is a source of socioeconomic inequality.

Seems like it&#x27;d do the opposite.

It&#x27;s a highly <i>political</i> angle though, and the dynamics of HN (both the culture, but also the technology here - threaded with a simple up&#x2F;down vote and a low engagement reply mechanism) don&#x27;t handle those sort of discussions well.<p>There are three levels on which to have an honest disagreement. Other than 0) plain misunderstanding (which I&#x27;m not counting), there&#x27;s 1) a difference in philosophy, a 2) difference in information, and 3) difference in interpretation of said information. (Eg two people observing an interaction; one person could say it was rudely handled, and the other could say that it was totally fine.)<p>In having a text input free-for-all, all 3 of those disagreements happen at once, as well as the 0th, plain misunderstanding.<p>I&#x27;ve noticed that perceived or projected disagreement over fundamental philosophy seems to drive low-value threads (Eg &quot;Covid-19&#x27;s just like the flu.&quot;), with responses that are very, very hard to read charitably, dead comments, and snarky&#x2F;throwaway&#x2F;drive-by replies.<p>There are half-baked experiments I wish I could run in order to fix it (like comment required to downvote; or downvoting requires a reason, eg: &quot;-1; unnecessarily insulting.&quot; or &quot;-1; trolling&quot;), but; this isn&#x27;t my forum to run those experiments on.<p>Ultimately what I&#x27;m saying though is moderating this forum must be tiresome work sometimes, so thank you, Dang for the work you do trying to promote thoughtful discussion, especially during these unprecedented times. Especially since being a moderator doesn&#x27;t scale!

Disclaimer: I have just read the title of the article, looked at the first chart within it and read your comment.<p>Your comment could basically be copy-pasted in any popular thread on HN and seem relevant. Much like a horoscope. Why don&#x27;t you engage with the specifics of the article yourself so that we have an example of what properly engaging with the specifics entails?<p>In fact, I&#x27;d find it interesting to read why you believe that others haven&#x27;t.

This is a dangerous title and I hate it because the implication is remote work = bad. These stupid titles are what people (e.g. Marissa Mayer) refer to as evidence when trying to enforce non-telecommute cultures.<p>The article itself is good and raises some serious questions worth discussing and even encourages finding ways to allow remote work for lower-income jobs, so I would have preferred &quot;Remote work and solving inequality&quot; or even &quot;Remote work and inequality&quot; as a title.<p>I really wish &quot;journalists&quot; would stop writing opinionated and click-bait titles like this because it&#x27;s really damaging to those of us that have livelihoods built around these things. If you&#x27;re trying to bring attention to inequality so we can better the lives of more people then that&#x27;s great, but don&#x27;t do it at the expense of destroying other lives. I&#x27;m seeing more and more articles attacking remote work like this and I&#x27;d be lying if I said I wasn&#x27;t a little anxious.

This is a pretty awful, clickbaity title. The implication is that remote work is <i>bad</i> for low-income earners, but that’s not the case. Inequality isn’t bad by itself. If some people are doing better without others being impacted, how could that be bad?

I taught myself IT skills while sleeping in a tent.<p>If anyone wants it bad enough, they can also teach themselves IT skills.<p>No need to bring classism into it-- Once someone teaches their self IT skills (while living homelessly, as I did), apparently suddenly they&#x27;re part of a separate class? How ironic.

I&#x27;m waiting for <i>Nuclear Winter improves inequality by eliminating high-income earners</i>.

There are no equals.

Are farmers considered to be &quot;working from home&quot;?

I&#x27;m afraid of these socialist trends and statements.<p>Hopefully, there will not be any new &quot;revolution&quot; where &#x27;low-income&#x27; will vote for some populist who will make everyone &quot;equal&quot;.<p>And by &quot;everyone&quot; they normally mean middle&#x2F;upper middle class because ultra-wealthy people operate in a bit different world than the rest of people.<p>AND:<p>Can&#x27;t low earners take those high-earners who work remotely (programmers, for example) as an example and follow their path rather than complain about inequality? I had a mate who was a good example for me at some point which allowed me to progress in life. What would happen if i metaphorically i asked the government to get part of his salary to help me to be &quot;equal&quot;? Is this discovered life path not a valuable resource and example?

There is no situation where those with more resources don&#x27;t have more resources. The best we can achieve is that each rightfully earns their resources.

Laptops and smart phones are everywhere these days, regardless of income level, so accessing remote work is not a problem. I think the only reason remote work might hurt low income people is due to lack of business owners taking advantage of available remote workers.

Equality is not a thing I ever care to have a society optimized for.<p>If you give me a planet, I don&#x27;t care that everyone else has a galaxy. Simply optimize for the leading edge and the rest will get dragged along.

&quot;Governments should encourage the adoption of telecommuting by employers where it’s possible but not yet implemented. They could, for instance, provide information to organizations about how it works.&quot;<p>This seems a bit delusional. Who actually believes the government knows how to run a business? If you think remote work should be encouraged by the government, all they need to do is use taxes&#x2F;tax breaks to incentivize it.