[jusssi]

A free market solution would be to make commute time paid (maybe to some reasonable maximum e.g. 1h per direction).

So instead of companies forcing their employees to come to the office so they don't get slapped with a penalty tax, they'd be actively participating in optimizing commutes. And it would similarly support those workers who have no option.

[anoncake]

How would you make sure the company doesn't gain influence on where its workers to live?

[jusssi]

Certainly for an at-will contract they could have some influence, as they could always fire anyone who lives farther than, say, 10 minutes away. Then their challenge would be to find enough workforce within that 10 minute radius. For a low paid on-site job located in an expensive city center, that could be hard.

I'm sure there would be all sorts of loopholes and weird situations in paid commutes. But there are also many of them in the remote tax suggested by the article. For instance, what would happen if a company officially says "no, you have to come to the office" but then in practice does nothing to enforce the rule?

Also, as a curiosity, where I live, there's a tax deduction for commute costs. Obviously, it's fine-tuned so that most people don't get to use it (i.e. would be so small that the effort to claim it exceeds the benefit), and so that you can never recover all your practical expenses. But some of those who have become remote workers because of COVID have lost access to that deduction.

[anoncake]

Even without at-will employment, employers have ways to put pressure on their employees. "Prioritizing" them in layoffs, withholding promotions and training, etc.