Census Bureau Reports Home-Based Workers Number 11 Million in 2005
The number of people who worked at home increased by nearly 2 million from about 9.5 million in 1999 to about 11.3 million in 2005, according to new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Nearly half of these home workers had college degrees and nearly half of them earned $75,000 a year or more.
These figures come from Home-Based Workers in the United States 1999-2005, a series of tables that describe the type of employment, occupations and characteristics of home-based workers in the United States.
The tables examine the total workforce and compare those who work at home with those who do not.
The data are produced from a supplement to the Survey of Income and Program Participation.
“An examination of the data shows an increasing percentage of the workforce is spending at least some time working from home,” said Alison Fields, chief of the Census Bureau’s Journey to Work and Migration Statistics Branch.
Home-based workers made up 8 percent of the total U.S. workforce in 2005, an increase from 7 percent in 1999. Among those who worked at home in 2005, about 8.1 million did so exclusively, an increase from 6.7 million in 1999.
Examining those who worked at home in 2005 by industry, the largest percentage worked in professional and related services (32 percent), followed by business and repair services (12 percent) and finance, insurance and real estate (10 percent).
The most popular occupations among those who reported working at home were professional (25 percent), executive, administrative and managerial (22 percent) and sales (18 percent).
The median monthly earnings of workers who worked at home were about $2,400 in 2005; the median annual family income for these workers was approximately $68,000.
High-paying jobs were more likely to involve working at home for some or all of the work time.
In 2005, 46 percent of people who said they worked at home some or all of the time earned at least $75,000 per year, compared with 34 percent of non-home workers who made at least that much.
Those who worked both at home and in an office had the highest percentage of high-paying jobs — about 54 percent of whom made $75,000 or more annually in 2005.
