Connecticut Governor Says Days of Commuting to NYC May End

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) Those Monday through Friday commutes from Greenwich, Connecticut, to Wall Street may become a thing of the past.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said the chief executives of some large companies have told him that telecommuting could help them save money by cutting office space by as much as 30%, signaling what may be a national shift by businesses. And with employees already stuck at home for weeks, they realize they can run just as well when they work at home. ......(more)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-05-13/connecticut-governor-says-days-of-commuting-to-nyc-may-be-over

[drray23]

1. it would be a nice trend.

it would help for climate change as well. Less traffic, people staying in their neighborhood. It would also improve on quality of life. I am currently saving 3 hours a day not having to commute and working from home. Only losers would be real estate tycoons like the kushners who own and rent towers with office space. It may also have an adverse effect on some small businesses like lunch places in the city.

[Blue_true]

8. 3 hours per day is a big time savings. nt

[Blue_true]

2. With modern technology, there is no reason for some worker classes to leave home.

I know that when I was in corporate America, I could access everything that I needed from home. With today's video capability, a person can have FaceTime with fellow employees and bosses very easily.

[napi21]

3. IIt would also help with the babysitting problem. Not with wee babies, but any over 4 should be

able to be home and not disturb mom or/& dad too much. Once the virus is out of the picture, somebody would actually be home when the kids come home from school.

[Blue_true]

4. I recently had to make a call about some raw ingredients that I didn't receive.

Since the state that the company is in is under heavy quarantine, it is unlikely that any of the people that I needed to talk to were at the office. The call went smoothly and everything got resolved, it didn't occur to me until several minutes later that the people that I talked were likely working in their home office.

This change would be a massive boon for parents. With no commuting, they will have more time for their children's needs.

[GusBob]

11. Great point!

Less traffic of all sorts, less congestion, less pollution, less stress

Less money for Trump and Kushner

[Maven]

5. LOL. Forget Stamford or Bridgeport commuters, Bloomberg speaks to the Greenwich crowd.

Earlier today, I read an article on their site that lamented the closing of small businesses like Eleven Madison Park, a Michelin three-star fine dining restaurant in Manhattan.

[msongs]

10. meals should not be tax deductible. if the high rollers want to dine out let them

pay for it themselves instead of getting their money back via tax rebates

[A HERETIC I AM]

6. Time to dump NY Office space REITS.

As if it really needed this sort of thing to make people realize that they didn’t need to travel to a high rise in southern Manhattan in order to have access to a phone and a Bloomberg terminal.

[MichMan]

7. Does that mean that NY will forgo all the income tax money if people don't have to go there to work?

[Blue_true]

12. Even if the tax situation stay unchanged, workers will save a lot of money on commuting costs

and cost of more expensive lunches than can be made at home. I don't know the commuting costs in that area, but shifting from bought lunch to home lunch saves at least $25-30 per week alone, more for expensive lunches. Then add in the commuting savings. Over a year that adds to to significant money back into the pockets of people, tax free.

[VMA131Marine]

16. This is a good question.

If you are telecommuting it’s also true that you may not even have a virtual presence in the city where your employer is based because the servers you log into and the data you work on and share could be anywhere in the world.
I’m pretty sure the NYC city tax is based on having a physical presence in the city for your job.

[GusBob]

9. Hey! I predicted this!

They figured its cheaper for their employees to work at home

Sorry NY real estate moguls!

Haha Kushner

[Blue_true]

13. I believe they saw that people working from home were just as efficient.

There likely will be a burst of equipment buying as people get updated in their home offices, and equipment may be upgraded every two to four years, but the long term savings for companies will be massive. In addition, companies get a better feel for which of their employees are dedicated and won't goof off.

[CTyankee]

14. Two things: lots of bosses don't like it when they can't actually see their employees working away

in their cubicles. The bosses figure that working from home is a kind of luxury that shouldn't be allowed. Second, when I did work from home a few times I found myself interrupted more than when I was at work. When my 3 kids got home from school it was chaos. Mom was there so they could interrupt or get into arguments so loud I'd have to step in and tell them to resolve their own arguments themselves. It was chaos.

[Blue_true]

15. Yes, the problems you noted exists.

When I worked from home, I would work many hours straight, I was as efficient or more efficient.

[drray23]

18. I second that.

I tend to work more at home because I do not see the time passing. I: am comfortably installed in my home office and before I know its its 7pm and time to have dinner. I take breaks from time to time to help my wife with whatever she is doing and walk the dog, etc.. Even with that , I end up being more productive.

[CTyankee]

19. Given my life situation at the time that didn't work out for me.

/Bosses had immediate distrust of you if they couldn't eyeball you all the time.

It sounds like you had a sane worker/boss relationship.

My last work situation was 15 years ago so things have changed.

[VMA131Marine]

17. Potentially more efficient if they don't have a one hour plus commute in each direction.

Would hate to be invested in Manhattan commercial real estate about now ...... isn’t that right, Jared!

[PSPS]

20. This was being discovered before Covid

The Economist had a story early this year or late last year about a large UK company who had instituted a plan where a rolling 20% of the workforce would work at home for a week. That saved them over a million pounds a month because they were able to give up an entire floor in the building where they have their offices.