Teleworking Americans tend to greatly overestimate how many people are doing the same

If you've been working from home throughout the coronavirus pandemic, there's a good chance you've overestimated how many of your fellow Americans have been doing the same, The Atlantic reports.

The Atlantic recently commissioned a poll from Leger asking Americans to guess how many people have teleworked over the past year-and-a-half. Of those who had been at home, 73 percent guessed the number was at least 50 percent. In reality, though, the highest point of remote work was at just 35 percent — and that was all the way back in May 2020.

Flash forward to August 2021, and 90 percent of people still teleworking believed 40 percent of Americans were in the same boat. But it turns out the actual number was 13.4 percent, meaning the vast majority of working Americans are back on the job in person.

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The Atlantic notes that the misconception stems from the fact people tend to think their personal experiences are more common than they are, though it also suggests that oversaturated reporting on the long-term possibility of remote work obscured the fact that many sectors of the economy, including healthcare and the service industry, do not allow for it. Read more at The Atlantic.