Economics

Remote Work Is Crushing Low-Skilled Left Behind in U.S Cities

  • New paper quantifies the impact in terms of lost work hours
  • Urban workers were hit harder than rural counterparts
Photographer: Erin Lefevre/Bloomberg
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The pandemic trend of white-collar employees working remotely or fleeing for the suburbs has disproportionately hurt low-skilled workers who stayed behind in deserted neighborhoods.

Now a new study has quantified the impact for millions of consumer-services workers such as hairdressers and waiters who relied on office employees to make a living in big cities before the pandemic.