The remote work fight isn’t over: Workers are willing to take a major pay cut, up to 25%, Harvard study shows

We’re nearly six years past the pandemic, but the remote work debate rages on. 

Many large companies like Amazon, Walmart, JPMorgan, and Uber have mandated five days a week in the office, and others including Google, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft are back to three or four in-person days. But workers are still rebelling against return-to-office policies by coming in late, leaving early, “coffee badging,” and stealing snacks. Some even work from home when they’re supposed to be at the office, a trend coined “hushed hybrid” and something managers are too burned out to enforce.

A late 2025 study by researchers at Harvard University, Brown University, and UCLA shows workers still value remote work so much, they would be willing to take a massive pay cut in order to get it. 

“On average, individuals are willing to forgo approximately 25% of total compensation for a job that is otherwise identical but offers partially or fully remote work instead of being fully in person,” according to researchers Zoë Cullen (Harvard), Bobak Pakzad-Hurson (Brown), and Ricardo Perez-Truglia (UCLA). 

To put that into perspective, if a candidate got a $200,000 job offer requiring five days in office and another $150,000 offer that allowed remote work, on average the candidate who wanted to work from home would take the $50,000 pay cut, Perez-Truglia told The Wall Street Journal. 

Remote workers are willing to take a massive pay cut to stay at home

Researchers collected survey data between May 2023 and December 2024 in a field experiment with Levels.fyi, a platform providing comprehensive wage data for tech professionals. The survey gathered detailed data on job offers and the alternatives workers ultimately chose, including characteristics like total compensation, where the job is based, and whether the position is remote. The study also used Glassdoor data including employer rankings as well as quality-of-life and cost-of-living measures. 

While it’s not necessarily news that workers would be willing to take a pay cut to work remotely, past studies have underplayed the degree of pay cut they would accept, according to the Harvard-Brown-UCLA study. 

“Our estimate is three to five times that of previous studies, which we partly attribute to methodological differences,” the researchers explained.

In May 2025, LinkedIn released a study showing nearly 40% of Gen Z and millennial workers said they would take a pay cut in exchange for more flexibility about where they work. Across all generations, the share was 32%. They surveyed 4,000 U.S.-based workers. Another 2025 study by recruiting firm Robert Half showed when the gap between a candidate’s salary expectation and an offer is too big, many employers negotiate remote and hybrid work to get candidates to sign on.

Why remote workers value flexibility over money

Laura Roman, a senior talent acquisition manager with London-based marketing firm Up World, wrote in an April 2025 LinkedIn post one of her candidates took a £7,000 pay cut—about $9,300—for a fully remote job. 

“The founder was hesitant at first. She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Why would anyone willingly take less money?” Roman wrote. “But then it clicked. They were offering something just as valuable as a bigger salary (for that candidate): flexibility.”

“Not everyone can afford to trade money for flexibility, but for those who can, it’s becoming a no-brainer,” she added. 

Theresa L. Fesinstine, founder of human resources advisory Peoplepower.ai, also previously told Fortune she’s seen some job candidates accept 5% to 15% less pay in exchange for remote work.

“There’s this unspoken exchange rate between flexibility and comp, and for some candidates, it’s worth a significant tradeoff,” she said. This is especially true “for those who value work-life balance or are saving on commute costs.”

Others, however, aren’t as keen on the idea of taking less pay just to work from their couches. 

In response to a Harvard Business School study showing 40% of workers would take at least a 5% salary cut to work from home, one Reddit user questioned in a post this year: “As in, I continue working from home and they slash my pay by 20%? While the company benefits from not having space for me in the office (saving on electricity, rent, water, concessions, etc.), not paying my internet or phone, etc.?” 

“Absolutely not,” the user wrote.

A version of this story was originally published on Fortune.com on October 10, 2025.

More on remote work:

• As boomer and Gen X bosses retire, working from home will make a major comeback, new research predicts—and you have work-life balance loving Gen Z to thank
• Fine for me, bad for us: 2 top management professors explain why remote work is bringing you down
• ‘Fertility president’ Trump has demanded a baby boom, and Stanford researchers have a solution: Let more people work from home

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com