Universal access to high-speed internet will make home-based work more productive, study

More people will work from home in the future - and if high-quality internet access is available to all Americans, that could lead to a sustained boost in worker productivity which could increase economic output by $160 billion a year.

That’s the main conclusion of a new study released Wednesday by the Aspen Economic Strategy Group. Before the pandemic, about 5% of full workdays were done from home. That spiked during the pandemic as Americans hunkered down to avoid infection and, while it will decline, is expected to settle at about 20% of full workdays going forward, said Steven J. Davis, an economist at the University of Chicago who did the study with Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and Jose Maria Barrero of the Instituto Tecnologico Autónomo de Mexico.