Post-pandemic work and the common good

The domino effect of the huge drop in work attendance rates raises a number of questions about temporal goods, political authority, and human fulfillment.

(Image: Bradyn Trollip/Unsplash.com)

The intersection of post-pandemic work and the declining state of urban life prompt questions about the common good.

Now in our fourth summer since COVID arrived, we are learning that post-pandemic work looks more like pandemic work than the experts predicted. A Stanford University study reports that the rate of working from home sits at approximately 25%—a five-fold jump from 2019. Perhaps most alarming: the ten largest business districts in the United States report work attendance rates below 50% of their pre-pandemic levels.

While the Census Bureau reveals that 27.6 million workers report they now “primarily” work from home (three times the number who reported the same in 2019), things break down in some interesting ways. First, the Stanford study reveals that college graduates work from home at a higher rate than non-college graduates. College grads work from home 37-38% of their time (an equivalent of roughly 2 days per week), while non-grads work from home only 23-26% of their time. Given college graduates are more likely to be in white collar, office roles and non-college graduates in retail and service roles, it is worth considering the two sides’ mutual dependence.

On one side of the exchange, office workers rely on those retail and service businesses (coffee shops, dry cleaners, gyms, restaurants, bars, hotels, etc.) to support and enliven their in-office workdays. On the other side, retail and service workers rely on office worker traffic for business. Free marketers appreciate that this dynamic reciprocity is a hallmark of a functioning economy. Of course, when office workers spend less time in the office, there is less foot traffic in the brick-and-mortar retail spaces supporting those offices. Data from the Stanford study reveal that office workers’ spending in major city business centers is dropping precipitously.

The study provides detail on the decline across 12 cities, but here are some key takeaways: the average worker in NYC is now spending $4600 less in that city business center per year. In Los Angeles, office workers are each spending $4200 less. In DC, they are spending $4050 less. In Atlanta, they spend $3940 less. Not surprisingly, retail businesses in those business centers are closing. San Francisco has 6.5% fewer retail establishments compared to 2019; Los Angeles has 4.2% fewer.

Of course, it is hard to reverse this trend. Without the retail and service businesses to support them, office workers likely view working in the city as less appealing and are less inclined to return. Employers looking to hire new workers realize this and respond accordingly. The Stanford study reports that job postings featuring working from home options are highest in major cities. In San Francisco, 30% of job postings promote the ability to work from home. In Boston, that number is 24%. In Chicago, it’s 22% and in Atlanta, it’s 21%.

Cities have always been centers of commerce – it is their raison d’etre. Everything else that we historically associate with city life – the arts, the culture, the entertainment – took root in cities because cities were where people worked. If we’re arriving at a point in time where that is no longer the case, it’s reasonable to ask: what happens?

For one, residents leave. A JPMorgan Chase study reports that city centers have experienced a net population decline of almost 1 million people since mid-2020. San Francisco alone has seen a population decline of a quarter of a million people. Manhattan County’s population has declined 5.8%. And it appears city residents leave city center neighborhoods disproportionately. This study indicates “downtown” areas of major cities have lost an astonishing 9% of their resident population.

Recently, economists have been quietly pondering other downstream effects. Lower demand for office building space coupled with lower demand for retail space could prompt a collapse in commercial real estate values. When commercial vacancies prompt residential flight, contagion sets in. The JPMorgan Chase study itself explicitly speculates on some foreseeable problems and leaves others for us to infer. Landlords look for help. Banks look for bailouts. Amidst the loss of business and property tax revenue, cities can’t provide the backstop. They look to states, states look to the federal government and the federal government looks to the American taxpayer.

Desolation adds accelerant to the mix of spiritual and cultural problems plaguing urbanity. Crime, homelessness and general lawlessness fill the void. The streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Philadelphia provide exhibit one. Gang violence in Chicago offers additional evidence. New York City offers still more: police there report that major crime increased 22% in 2022 with surges in the number of rapes, robberies, felony assaults, burglaries, grand larcenies and auto thefts up year over year.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that the common good comprises “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily” (CCC 1906; cf GS 26). Pursuit of the common good “presupposes respect for the human person” as a human person created by God. It is based on the fundamental dignity of the individual and recognizes that, as human persons, we are interdependent. As we interact, we should help each other develop – in both our eternal orientation and in our ability to access those temporal goods which will enable us each to live a truly human life. Achieving the conditions for the pursuit of the common good requires political authority to act morally for a stable and just order.

As we reflect on its application here, we consider our own role in this as well as the role of government and corporations.

First government. Even today, have federal, state and local officials fully appreciated the cost of their lengthy lockdown policies? In places like California, states of emergency were not lifted until just months ago. If human habits are hard to change, is it possible that low work attendance rates continue to be as low as they are because sustained government mandates made them so? By keeping working people out of cities, did government effectively enable crime to solidify a home there? And will defunding the police and ending bail – like the city of Los Angeles just did – encourage workers to return or crime to continue? Are these actions consistent with political authority acting morally to establish a “stable, just order”?

Have corporations failed their employees? There is some evidence that the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement picked up steam during COVID as part of a strategy by companies to give employees a greater sense of meaning, purpose and attachment during lockdown. But could it be that instead of earning greater employee commitment, taking controversial positions on abortion, Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ issues have, instead, created a spirit of divisiveness and resentment among significant portions of the workforce? By atomizing human persons uniquely created by God in His image down to (often immutable) categories such as skin color and sex, do companies foster “social conditions which allow people as groups or individuals to reach their fulfillment more fully and easily”? Does doing such things get us anywhere close to fostering our interdependent pursuit of the eternal good or does it push people further apart? Is it possible that if c-suites really prefer to get folks back to their cubicles, that perhaps DEI-led sessions which divide workers into villain and victim camps are not the way to go?

What is our role in this? If the commute to our city office involves a perilous crime-ridden train ride or subway trip, is our reluctance to leave home on us? If we have to traverse needles and human feces on our way into office buildings, are we the problem? If the company we work for believes we are irredeemably guilty of this or that injustice because of our skin color or sex or wants to vilify beliefs rooted in faith, can we be blamed for preferring to Zoom in?

Some of us appreciate that working from home more regularly helps us to maintain a family and – in some cases – has given us newfound insight into the increasingly disordered nature of schools’ relationships with our young children. Is it possible that, in the process, we are individually and collectively re-discovering the call to be parents first and workers second? And if we’re now beginning to put first things first again, could this set off a re-valuation of other things in our economy?

And while rightly attending to the primary duty of getting ourselves and our families to heaven, how can we live lives which help others get there, too?


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About Ronald L. Jelinek, Ph.D. 16 Articles
Ronald L. Jelinek, Ph.D., is a Professor of Marketing at Providence College. The opinions expressed here are his own.

9 Comments

  1. For one, residents leave. A JPMorgan Chase study reports that city centers have experienced a net population decline of almost 1 million people since mid-2020. San Francisco alone has seen a population decline of a quarter of a million people. ”
    ******
    SF’s troubles began way before Covid. I was there almost a decade ago & things were falling apart then. Parts of the city looked like a scene from a dystopian film set. We were delayed getting on the train because there was a dead body in the way. It’s a place on my do-not-return list.

    • We live in Northern Virginia and not infrequently have we taken the Virginia Railway into Washington to visit the National Gallery. It beats driving into D.C. and paying much to park the car. We hesitate now to make the trip because of reports of increased crime and lawlessness in the District since Covid. So, the money we would have spent while there for dining out and other travel expenses is lost to the District and its economy. But, then, again, this pandemic was orchestrated right from the get-go by our Federal government. They got the intended effect – a populace so fearful that they are putty in the hands of tyrants.

  2. For historical perspective, the national freeway system was authorized under the National Interstate Highway and Defense Act of 1956, partly because–in terms of “defense”—freeways enabled dispersal of the nation’s urban populations into the widespread and less vulnerable suburbs. Also, rapid evacuations, all in protection against possible nuclear attack. (Moreover, to enable military convoys, and even with some straight segments available as possible military aircraft landing runways…as a junior officer Eisenhower had accompanied a 1919 military convoy on its transcontinental journey, which took 62 days to complete).

    We might say the one of the greatest urban planners of the 20th century was Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. And now, Dr. Anthony Fauci in the 21st!

    Today we have the partial cratering of the cities by COVID which, if things pan out, can be laid at the doorstep of yet another expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Who is now charged by one Senator with lying to Congress about working with Wuhan scientists to unwittingly set loose the gain-in-function COVID virus. https://www.paul.senate.gov/op_eds/fox-news-op-ed-sen-rand-paul-md-nih-lied-and-continues-lie-about-gain-function-research-and-covid/

    And, for the depopulation of cities by the rise of the decentralized work space–in which families win!

    All politics is local, AND global! The global half–Russia yesterday and China today. And, to think that yours truly tooled up with an advanced urban/regional planning background, now to find that I and others were only rearranging folding chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

    • One of my children is employed by a university and following Covid has been able to work mostly remotely from home and with their family instead of in a woke university office environment.
      They hope remote work never ends.

  3. One of the broad issues is that, in the past, we were trained that if we worked 5 or 6 days, 40 hrs or more, we’d get health care and a reasonable retirement after 30 years. Do as we ask and you’ll be financially taken care of, and a gold watch to boot. this worked fairly well, especially considering there often were more people than high paying jobs – you wanted to keep a good job. Due to complicated and advancing technology and the pill etc.. there are fewer positions for the same amount of output. It’s now switched to you put the money in your own retirement account because we don’t want the liability on our balance sheet or being funded. Also, if we don’t like your “numbers” you can just head to the door now, thank you. You’ve got the largest corporations, that pretty much created the middle class post war, that have been bailed out directly or indirectly by Uncle Sam. These corporations are now often telling us what we will do – no ICE in the near future just EVs is one example. Another “info” corporation was found to be cooperating with the White House to thwart different points of view on Covid 19.

    The common good works if the common man and his family (can I even afford a family these days) are taken care of – the elites in charge sing a good tune at election time, but if you can catch them on a hot microphone after their speech their true colors come out. Ask not what you can do….?

  4. My husband (R.I.P.–died of COVID 12/26/20 before the vaccines were available) worked from home for many years (big worldwide computer company) before the COVID pandemic and the exodus away from the cities started. He would drive into Chicago to the “main office” every couple of months, but this ended once “Zoom” and other online meeting platforms became available. There is no reason for computer/tech people to work in an office building–and many businesses these days are all “computer” and “tech” (even law firms!). I see nothing ominous or “troubling” about this trend. Small businesses e.g., coffee shops, restaurants, etc., that depend on big-city workers need to move out to the suburbs; a daily trip to Starbucks was part of my husband’s workday–it was only a mile away from our house. He loved eating meals at home instead of in the car during the morning commute or in a “breakroom” at a office building, and he would still go out once a week to a restaurant down the street just for a change of scene. Also, many of the department stores, especially clothing shops, that used to make up downtown shopping districts have either relocated to the suburbs or gone entirely online. Same for beauty/nail salons and spas. Same for gyms and workout centers. And so have entertainment centers and nightclubs. Big cities have to adjust!! Many of us prefer to go to a ball game at a high school stadium and cheer for our local kids instead of fighting the traffic to attend a Major League game (and leaving only to find that our car has been vandalized or that we are getting mugged in the parking lot!) or we attend a local theater to see someone we know sing and dance instead of spending $150 or more to see a “Famous Actor”. IMO, the only real drawback to the “home as workplace” is the need for a dedicated home office, which in an older home, takes over a bedroom or makes it necessary to re-finish the basement or attic (both expensive jobs). But newer homes are being built with home offices. We’ll figure this out! In the meantime, big cities need to clean up their crime if they want decent people and families to spend any time there, and if they want the HOSPITALS and medical centers to continue to have a presence there, as well as the universities!! Going to college in a farm town like DeKalb, Illinois (home of Northern Illinois University) may seem like the end of the world, but violent crime is pretty rare there compared to downtown Chicago, and of course, many students are opting for a cheaper and more convenient online education and degree. I don’t see that the trend away from “Big Cities” is such a bad thing. I wish more of us lived in small cities and towns. Life is good here.

  5. I live just outside NYC. Cannot stand the place,its filthy and dangerous. Whereas I used to go in for various reason about once a year, I NEVER go there now. The problem is excessive crime which is no longer being prosecuted or controlled, and excessive expense. Ditto excessive homeless folks all over the streets or violent illegals. Expensive to park, purchase food, name your poison. Rents for the young people who evidently enjoy city living are far too high and adversely impact your ability to live there like a human being. No thanks. That being said I do not think that workers abandoning the cities feels like a good idea for the country as a whole. Work from home once a week as an accommodation, ok. More than that, no. There are adjunct businesses that depend upon the commuters who work there. When those jobs ( which cannot be done from home,expire, we will have a major collapse. It is up to the companies to give employees a “return or you’re fired” memo if they want a return to normalcy. However, without people having the brains to vote in those who dont think crime is ok and that persecuting it is evidence of racism, decay is just around the corner.

  6. Conveniences must enhance liberty /liberties -not restrict diminish and remove. So there are companies that continue to adapt on a consensual basis but also ones that have the tech replacing liberty. For the latter the tech speaks to certain mindsets about controlling power and profiteering not facilitation and optimization. Once they have their way it establishes as a stronghold and obligatoriness.

    There will be arguments about why sacrifice profits for liberty and what happens here is that it is difficult to argue the long term negative effects, they just can’t be seen in the present and they appear in the present as speculative or exaggerated.

    There are other points to do with particular settings. I for one believe that legal practice by its nature requires physical proofs including personal presence. This is its “constant”. Law by remote appearances falls short of in person interrogatory and physical exam like paper filing and title transfer etc.

    In another aspect of law, citizens’ rights accrue upon the activity of the actual public service of bureaucrats; and immediately as they go remote these rights are effectively quashed and something non-law “edifice” usurps their places and stifles them as if they don’t apply immediately and never existed.

    Justice delayed, justice denied, etc.

    Similar issues affect private transactions. Arguably contracts can provide by mutual agreement what consequences will flow but even this will tend to become cumbersome.

    Further, you now have the recent examples of banks behaving in a non-mutual fashion saying it’s because you do not qualify under their “policies”. We know this offends established principles in banking like equality of contract; however to get this redressed would require costly lawsuit and/or political intervention.

    ‘ It is not as though such experiments have not be tried, with disastrous results, in the past. The critique of “Enlightenment liberalism” is perhaps a little too unnuanced in that it fails to see the fact that there was a variety of Enlightenment liberalisms in contention. The reverence for the human form, reason, the scientific method, and human rights was not the invention of secularist humanists. All this came from Christianity, and I would contend that the best of the Enlightenment, including free markets, comes out of thinkers like the sixteenth-century Scholastics of Salamanca. ‘

    https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/06/20/economics-politics-and-the-parables-of-christ-an-interview-with-fr-robert-sirico/

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