Pandemic-era programs offering cash, housing assistance and other benefits to remote workers have contracted as private companies and government agencies bring employees back to offices, though several communities continue using relocation incentives to attract skilled residents.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Cash incentives designed to lure remote employees to smaller cities and rural communities are becoming less common as the work-from-home boom that fueled them continues to recede.
Cities and economic development groups across the country launched relocation programs during and shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, offering thousands of dollars, housing support, office space and recreational benefits to workers willing to move. As major employers have increasingly imposed full-time or hybrid office requirements, however, many of those initiatives have ended or scaled back, according to Newsmax.
The underlying economic strategy has not disappeared. Communities still compete for residents by emphasizing lower living costs, outdoor recreation, shorter commutes and quality of life, betting that skilled and well-paid newcomers will generate tax revenue, support local businesses and encourage further investment.
Several programs that remain active continue to offer substantial benefits. Ascend West Virginia provides accepted participants with $12,000, access to coworking space and complimentary outdoor equipment rentals. Participants must remain in West Virginia for two years to receive the complete package.
In Kansas, Choose Topeka works with employers in Shawnee County to provide as much as $15,000 to qualifying workers who purchase a home and up to $10,000 to those who rent. Tulsa Remote, launched in Oklahoma in 2019, has offered a $10,000 grant, housing assistance, office space and other benefits.
The surge in remote employment dramatically expanded interest in those programs. Tulsa Remote managing director Justin Harlan told Reuters in 2022 that the pandemic produced a “huge uptick in applications.” The program accepted 60 people in 2019, followed by 350 in 2020 and 950 in 2021.
Tulsa Remote received approximately 30,000 applications in 2021 but accepted only 3%, Harlan said. About half of the applicants came from the technology sector in San Francisco and New York.
Alabama’s Remote Shoals initiative also drew nationwide attention before organizers ended the program after six years. Launched in 2019, it offered participants as much as $10,000 based on income if they earned at least $52,000 annually and lived for one year in a participating Shoals-area city.
“This program put a tremendous spotlight on this area and had a tremendous economic impact on our community,” Adam Himber, vice president of the Shoals Economic Development Authority, told Newsmax.
The Shoals EDA has traditionally focused on expanding the regional economy by recruiting industrial and manufacturing employers. Remote Shoals represented a different model by attracting individual workers first and relying on their spending, tax contributions and personal connections to produce broader economic benefits.
The program received more than 10,400 applications during its existence. Applications came from every state, and participants ultimately relocated from 37 states. Two international applicants also took part, one from Canada and another from Belize.
“The top states where participants came from included Florida, Tennessee, and California, but I think that varied throughout the life of the program,” Himber said. “When COVID-19 happened, we saw more applications and interest from largely densely populated cities, and then it got to the point where that interest was really distributed throughout the country.”
Himber said organizers relied in part on research, data and findings produced by Tulsa Remote when developing the Alabama program.
Remote work strengthened an emerging shift in local economic development. Communities historically attempted to recruit companies and expected workers to follow. The newer approach seeks to attract residents by creating desirable and affordable places to live, with the expectation that employers, entrepreneurs and investment will eventually follow them.
The flexibility to live farther from a traditional workplace accelerated that change. Census Bureau American Community Survey data showed remote work increasing sharply across every major industry from 2019 through 2021.
The survey gathers demographic, housing, social and economic information used by government agencies when distributing federal funds and planning community services. Businesses also rely on the data when evaluating markets and making investment decisions.
That flexibility has diminished as companies restore in-person schedules. Executives have cited collaboration, employee mentoring and organizational culture when requiring workers to return, while financial and strategic factors have also influenced the shift.
Office mandates can help protect corporate real estate investments, and some employers have used stricter attendance policies to encourage voluntary departures without formally announcing layoffs or paying severance. Amazon, Dell, Meta, Google, Walmart and UPS are among the large companies that have substantially reduced remote-work opportunities.
Federal agencies have followed a similar course. The Department of Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration are among those that ended broad telework arrangements.
California also accelerated the movement away from remote work by requiring most state employees to report in person at least four days each week beginning in 2026.
Arkansas’ Life Works Here program, which offered selected newcomers $10,000 and a bicycle, became inactive after reportedly drawing 66,000 applicants. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders separately ended remote work for employees in the state’s executive branch.
The gradual disappearance of remote positions contributed directly to the decision to end Remote Shoals. Himber said organizers began seeing participants ordered back to offices either full time or under hybrid arrangements as the pandemic receded.
“We kind of started seeing that change,” Himber said, noting that some jobs moved from office-based work to remote schedules before shifting back again. “So we evaluated and decided we wanted to taper off the program.”
The program recruited 157 remote workers, and 74% continued living in the Shoals after completing the required residency period. Of the 41 participants who eventually left, most stayed beyond the mandatory 12 months, while approximately half remained for at least 2½ years.
Accepted workers also brought relatives, family members and friends into the area. Himber estimated that the total number of additional residents reached 318 after household members were included.
The effects extended beyond those formally accepted. Some unsuccessful applicants visited the Shoals during the process and later decided to relocate independently.
“So there are multipliers that go into it that we can’t really track,” Himber said. “What we created with this program is going to give us exposure for a long time and continue to have an impact.”
Although fewer workers can now move without considering an employer’s physical location, the experience of programs such as Remote Shoals and Tulsa Remote demonstrated that relocation incentives can generate lasting population and economic gains. Communities that continue offering them are increasingly competing for a smaller pool of eligible workers, but affordability and quality of life remain powerful recruiting tools even as the pandemic-era remote-work surge fades.
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