Seattle-area return-to-office mandates strain household budgets
After Jessica Poe, 41, separated from her husband in February, she found it hard to remain in Seattle.
Poe set out in search of a new home for herself and her two dogs. But she quickly realized that it’d be hard to find a spacious, pet-friendly apartment within her budget of $1,900 per month. So, she moved out of the city and into a small house on her brother’s property in Spanaway, a quiet suburban area a short drive south of Tacoma, Washington.
There, her dogs had ample space to roam and play. Rent was just $750 a month. And Poe’s then-employer — a private lending company — allowed her to work remotely, so she spent no time or money on commuting.
About three months into the arrangement, the company got bought out. The acquisition led to layoffs, and Poe was let go in July. She quickly found a new job, but there was a catch: It required all staff to work in-office five days a week.
“It is mandatory and that was made very, very clear to me on day one,” Poe said. “Like they were crystal clear.”
Such a requirement may come as no surprise to workers in the Seattle area. An increasing number of companies, including big names like Amazon and Starbucks, are tightening their return-to-office policies. Many businesses now expect employees to badge into an office on at least some, if not all, days of the workweek.
As a result, across the country, millions of workers are seeing a large-scale reversal of the remote work flexibilities that rapidly became the norm four years ago. As the ground shifts, it’s bringing back major budgetary considerations that workers haven’t had to contend with for years.
Since 2021, the percentage of the workforce working remotely in Seattle has declined. Many employers have instituted mandatory return-to-office policies, while the number of new job postings for remote jobs has fallen.
For those like Poe who have organized their lives around working remotely, the reinstatement of in-person work can be stressful — and expensive.
She took the job, even though it is in Bellevue. To get to work, she had to drive two hours each way, or more depending on traffic. Her costs ballooned massively. On gas alone, Poe was spending nearly $500 a month. Depending on how backed up her normal commute was, she sometimes opted to pay a $15 toll each way to take a faster route. On average, that added $300 a month or more, she estimates. The costs compounded quickly, eating into her annual income of $75,000.
Less tangible was the depreciation of her car. Each day, she would put another 100 miles on it. In three months, she had to get two oil changes.
During Poe’s first few months on the job, the commute “became my entire personality,” she said. She rarely saw her pets, friends and adult son. “I had no life.”
Gas and food add up
Employees acclimated to working remotely are often taken aback by just how much commuting costs — expenses that, when compounded, can feel like an effective pay cut.
Benneth Sison, 27, is a structural engineer living in downtown Seattle and working in Lynnwood, a suburb north of the city. He started his current job in May. In August, the company instituted a full workweek return-to-office requirement.
Because of congestion, Sison spends between an hour and 40 minutes to two hours each day on the road, or up to 10 hours a week. Gas runs him $100 a week. With the recent opening of the light rail stop in Lynnwood, Sison could hypothetically take transit most of the way. But his office is a 30-minute uphill walk from the station.
More time on the road also means less time at home. As a result, Sison finds himself buying food at work more often than packing lunch, adding another $240 a month to his spending. Between commuting costs and inflation, Sison estimates that he’s saving 25% less money these days than he used to.
“I kind of adjusted,” he said.
But Sison is worried about traffic getting even worse in the new year, when Amazon is set to begin requiring all employees to return to the office five days a week. The higher the number of people commuting, the more clogged the streets, the longer he fears he’ll have to endure traffic.
“I think most people want to spend more time for themselves, rather than sitting in their car,” he said.
Child care headaches
For families with children, the logistics of returning to an office are even more complicated.
In July 2023, Jennifer Budinick, 37, returned to her job as a staff attorney at a nonprofit following the birth of her second child. The organization had begun requiring employees to come into the office one or two days each week, but Budinick got an accommodation to work fully remotely as she continued to breastfeed her son.
In May, she began going from her Ballard home to the office in Pioneer Square one day per week. She had braced for the emotional cost of being away from her kids. But it was the financial toll of commuting that took her by surprise.
“It was kind of my first time really going back in-person regularly post-COVID,” she said. The reality of going to work, from the traffic to the parking costs, was “brutal.”
Her husband works hourly teaching music lessons. To take care of the kids during the time Budinick is now commuting, he’s dropped some students, which translated to lost income for the family.
Families across the state struggle to find affordable child care. In 2023, the median cost of care at a King County child care center was over $2,000 per month — an increase of nearly 50% over the past decade, driven by labor shortages and other high costs faced by the sector. While numerous programs exist to help families afford child care, many have long waiting lists or income caps that leave out middle-income households.
Budinick makes about $35 an hour take-home, and her husband charges between $40 and $50 for an hour of instruction. In Seattle, hourly child care costs can be almost as much as what either of them earns, so hiring a nanny never seemed to make a lot of sense financially.
Typically, Budinick will park in the Lumen Field lot. Most times, a day pass costs just $16. But during events, parking can cost $32 a day or more. Street parking is cheaper, but it forces her to move her car every two hours.
Most workers acknowledge that working in-person has its advantages. But the benefits can often be overshadowed by the compounding expenses.
Optimistically, Budinick tells herself that it’s not always going to be this difficult. They’ve decided to hire a nanny after all for a few hours each week. And in a few years, she said, both her kids will be in school, and the scramble to balance child care and commuting won’t be a difficulty.
“I do try to see the big picture and think a little bit about the relationships at work I’m able to kind of cultivate a little bit more in person,” she said. “It does feel good to be around people.”
Moving for a job
Poe’s arrangement of commuting to Bellevue from Spanaway lasted about three months. In mid-October, she moved back to the Seattle metro area, finding a dog-friendly apartment in Redmond for about $2,400 a month, which includes $150 a month in pet rent.
To afford it, she scaled back retirement contributions. It wasn’t a choice she wanted to make so much as one she had to. Spending four hours a day in a car was giving her back pain. She would call her mom on her drives and break down crying. Something had to give.
Despite the costs, moving closer to work has transformed her life for the better. She goes on walks in the morning and evening, does yoga and sees her son and friends regularly.
“My time is back,” she said. “Yes, I’m paying high rent. But that cost is better, I think, than the human cost of my mental health.”
It can be easy to dismiss concerns that workers have about the loss of remote work. After all, people have been clocking into offices for as long as office jobs have existed. The costs of commuting — the gas, the traffic, the sad desk lunch — are not an upheaval but simply a return to pre-COVID normalcy, some argue.
That might not be a fair comparison, said Sison. Between 2020 and 2024, consumers have been hit hard by record-setting rates of inflation, and the cost of essentials from food to energy have risen dramatically. Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that Seattle-area inflation for the year ending in October 2024 was 3%, lower than any point since February 2021 but still higher than prepandemic rates.
“Things changed,” Sison said, “especially after COVID.” For workers whose income hasn’t kept up with inflation, flexibility to work remotely can go a long way toward mitigating the high cost of living in Seattle.
In an ideal world, he’d split his week between working from home and going into the office. Being in-person has its draws. He gets to meet clients, and he enjoys collaborating with his colleagues. Both have their place, he said; there just needs to be balance.