We asked: Would you prefer a $240,000 in-office job or a $120,000 remote one?
The Business Insider readers who responded were split down the middle, with the lower-paying virtual job narrowly winning out by just one vote.
365 readers answered Business Insider’s informal survey following the debate’s TikTok virality. 183 answered that they would choose the $120,000 remote gig, while 182 chose to go five days in-person for double the salary.
In follow-up conversations, eight respondents — four on each side — explained to Business Insider why they made their choices.
While the reader survey isn’t scientific, the results, and the reasons people gave us for why they voted the way they did, offer insight into how workers today view the tradeoffs.
Which is better: Flexibility or more money?
In 2018, Arlton Lowry packed a bag and traveled from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Bali.
The 44-year-old owner of a digital product design agency spent seven weeks working remotely, waking up at 1 a.m. and scootering through paddy fields to a coworking space where he clocked in on Central Time.
Lowry voted for the remote option. That trip wouldn’t be possible if his company wasn’t remote-first, he said, and the flexibility is a benefit for his employees as well.
“If it wasn’t for remote-based work, we probably wouldn’t be able to attract and retain the talent that we have,” he said.
Respondents who chose the lower-salary remote option prized flexibility and the absence of a rigid corporate culture. It’s about more than doing your laundry or squeezing in a workout, they said; it’s about freedom.
Betty Chen said she was tired of dealing with other people’s egos. After corporate jobs at Autodesk and Cisco, Chen decided to go freelance before the pandemic. Now, the 49-year-old San Francisco resident does contract UX design and boards dogs in her home.
“I’m so much happier,” Chen said. “I did better working with animals, not doomscrolling. Touch grass.”
Chen also enjoys not having to put on makeup. “As a woman going into the office, there’s another half hour of maintenance,” she said.
Those who chose the in-person option say that flexibility comes at the cost of organizational performance. American Edge Project CEO Doug Kelly said that there was a “chemistry” to bringing people together.
“I would rather pay people more to be on-site working with me,” the 60-year-old Columbus, Ohio resident said. “It increases the product that the company is making and the creativity overall.”
Dominic Sharlette agreed: “You have to be in the office to get great products made.”
Sharlette is a 59-year-old health tech worker based in New York. He works five days in-person, and said he is happy that way. Jobs like customer service could be done remotely, he said, but work that’s “pushing innovation” must be done face-to-face.
Then there’s the salary question. The prompt offered double the pay — $240,000 compared to $120,000 — for in-person attendance. For some, the money was enough.
Jennifer Rasmussen, a 44-year-old logistics worker from Fargo, North Dakota, likes her fully remote job. As she called me, her golden retrievers lay next to her. But the perks of $240,000 were too strong not to influence her vote.
“The quality of life for my entire family would improve with a salary at that level,” she said.
Rasmussen’s kids are still young. The money would help her family travel internationally or hire childcare and cleaning help. She could also save more money for retirement, she said.
Amy Leonard, a 42-year-old community college teacher from San Jose, California, said she would choose the virtual job so she could move elsewhere. The Bay Area has a notoriously high cost of living. Leonard said that most of her money now went to basic expenses, such as gas and food.
“I could definitely take that, move somewhere else, and probably own a house instead of having to rent,” Leonard said.
A generational divide?
In her debate-sparking TikTok, influencer Tinx said that she could immediately guess the generation of the individual consider the half-salary remote option: Gen Z.
In the video, Tinx said that time in the office could do Gen Z some good. “It’ll make you all less weird,” she said.
Priya Chaudhari, a 20-year-old student at the University of Georgia, said that much of her generation actually preferred to be in-person. The in-office push was a “rebound” from an adolescence on screens, she said. Chaudhari and some of her friends have chosen to get off social media.
Chaudhari said she would opt for the $240,000 salary, citing the pay difference and her own extroversion. “I really thrive off working with other people,” she said.
Pedro Ochoa posed the question to his four-person team. The 45-year-old manager of business intelligence said the team was split generationally, with the younger colleagues opting for higher pay and the older colleagues choosing the remote work role.
Younger workers see “very hard outcomes for their careers,” the Dallas resident said, so they want to claim as much income and experience as they can while they’re still employed. Older workers care more about raising their families, he said.
Ochoa put himself in the latter camp. He’d take the remote option.
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