Work from Home Rate Declined in 2023 in Multnomah County

March 13, 2025

The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally shifted the way people work. Workers who could worked from home and thus shifted away from other means of transportation. The share of workers living in Multnomah County who worked from home more than tripled from 2019 to 2021. In 2023, we saw many of these commuting pattern numbers trend back towards pre-pandemic patterns. Despite these changes, 2023 commuting patterns still look very different compared to 2019.

In 2023, an estimated 24% of workers living in Multnomah County worked from home most of the time, a decrease of 8 percentage points from 2021. This is notably higher than Oregon statewide and the U.S., where 18% and 14% of workers worked from home, respectively.

Most Multnomah residents still drove to work. Sixty-two percent of workers drove to work in 2023 – increasing 3 percentage points from 2023 – with 53% driving alone and 9% carpooling. Though high, this is considerably less than the rest of Oregon and the U.S. where 74% and 78% of workers drive to work, respectively.

The share of workers taking public transportation remains at half of 2019 levels at 6%. We can see this in TriMet ridership data. In 2019, there were an average of about 98,000 boardings a day. In 2023, that number was around 55,000. However, this is still higher than Oregon and the U.S. where 2% and 4% of workers commute using public transit, respectively.

The share of Multnomah residents who walked and biked to work held steady as well. Walking remained at 5% and biking remained at 3%. Multnomah has notably higher biking rates than Oregon statewide or the U.S., which is 1% and less than 1%, respectively.

Those who took taxicab, motorcycle, or other means remained at 1%.

Workers with Higher Incomes More Likely to Work from Home

In 2019 and earlier, means of transportation were similar across all income levels. For instance, between 69% and 76% of residents across all earnings levels drove to work, 10-14% took public transportation, and 5-9% worked from home.

The picture is very different in 2023. Residents with annual earnings greater than $75,000 (in 2023 dollars) were much more likely to work from home (34%) than residents with annual earnings between $35,000 and $75,000 (21%) or less than $35,000 (14%). Residents with higher incomes were also less likely to take public transportation, drive alone or carpool, or walk. Rates of taking taxicab, motorcycle, bicycle, or other means were similar across earnings levels.

Higher-wage occupations – like legal, computer, and business occupations – tend to have more telework opportunities, especially when compared to lower-wage occupations like service occupations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has researched this more in depth, which you can find here.

Fewer People Drive to Work in Portland Metro Compared with Other Metro Areas

Looking at the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro Metropolitan Statistical Area (Portland MSA), an estimated 21% of residents worked from home in the seven-county area. That was the seventh largest estimated share amongst measured MSAs in the U.S., behind the high of 28% for residents of the Boulder, Colorado MSA.

The Portland MSA has one of the lowest shares of drivers to work among measured MSAs with 70%, the 9th smallest share in the U.S. The New York, N.Y. MSA has the smallest share with 51% of workers driving for their commute.

Despite significant declines from 2019 in the share of workers taking public transit and biking to work, Portland MSA residents still use those means of transportation at a very high rate compared to other MSAs. The Portland MSA is the 24th highest share amongst MSAs with 3% of the workforce using public transit to commute, behind a high of 27% in the New York MSA. The Portland MSA was 18th highest for bike commuters with 1% of the workforce commuting that way behind a high of 4% in the Boulder MSA.

The Portland MSA was roughly average for the share of those commuting by walking and by taxicab, motorcycle, or other means.