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Remote work opportunities aren’t equal across Wisconsin

By Anna Kleiber STAFF WRITER

Remote work in Wisconsin skyrocketed since the COVID-19 pandemic began. But according to a new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum, remote work options are not equally distributed across the state, which could worsen existing digital divides.

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Released in February 2023, the Wisconsin Policy Forum report, titled “The Uneven Rise of Remote Work,” found job type and infrastructure played a role in creating a remote work divide within the state by analyzing remote work data from 2021.

Among the 100 largest metropolitan areas nationally, Madison ranked 22nd in share of workers who primarily worked from home in 2021, according to the report. Similarly, Dane County residents were the most likely to work remotely in the state, with nearly a quarter reporting they work from home.

However, residents in neighboring Rock and Dodge counties — both less populous than Dane County — had less than 10% of residents working from home, according to the report.

Joe Peterangelo, a senior researcher for Wisconsin Policy Forum, authored the 2023 report and found working from home is more common in some Wisconsin countries than others, primarily due to uneven concentrations of “remote-capable” occupations.

Put simply, di erences in local economies impact who can work remotely, Peterangleo said.

“The counties that we found that had the smallest concentrations of remote work, they tend to be more manufacturing focused,” he explained.

Hands-on jobs are more common than professional positions in Wisconsin’s rural counties, Peterangelo said. In Dodge County, only 11.3% of jobs were in highly remote-capable sectors. approximately 30% of total jobs in Dodge County are within the manufacturing sector, the county’s leading sector, according to state data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

Additionally, a National Bureau of Economic Research study estimated at least two-thirds of jobs in each of five major sectors — finance and insurance, educational services, information, corporate management and professional, scientific and technical services — can be done fully or partially from home, whereas less than one quarter of jobs in other sectors like agriculture and manufacturing can be done remotely.

“The occupations that tend to o er more remote and hybrid opportunities already tend to have more advantages, higher pay, better benefits,” Peterangelo said.

He warned those benefits, if left concentrated in urban counties and among wealthier residents, could worsen preexisting inequities among Wisconsin workers.

“This could be another benefit for workers who tend to already have more advantages,” Peterangelo said. “There’s also a racial equity issue, too, because occupations that tend to not allow remote and hybrid are more likely to have higher concentrations of Black and Hispanic workers.”

Broadband in Wisconsin

Among jobs with remote work potential, rural areas still lag behind, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum report. Remote work typically means video meetings, VPN usage and other tasks requiring broadband internet connection that rural areas lack.

Approximately 22% of rural Wisconsinites — more than three times the state average — don’t have the infrastructure needed for an internet connection fast or reliable enough to meet federal broadband standards, according to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2021 Broadband Deployment Report. To meet broadband require- ments, the FCC requires download speeds of 25 megabits per second and upload speeds of three megabits per second.

This is all assuming the FCC’s maps are accurate — something multiple states have challenged, according to the Cap Times. In Wisconsin, the Public Service Commission (PSC) challenged more than 7,000 locations in October of last year where they believed accurate numbers on broadband access were missing or incorrect.

In February 2023, Gov. Tony Evers proposed a budget calling for the state to invest $750 million in broadband expansion over the next decade. Broadband maps released last year by the FCC identify underserved areas that would qualify for federal funding made available through the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program established by the bipartisan infrastructure law.

“Whether it’s going to school, working from home, or running a small business, broadband is essential to ensuring our families, communities, and our state bounce back from this pandemic even better than we were before it hit,” Evers said in a statement last November.

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