About 1 in 5 Summit County residents works from home, the second-highest rate in Utah, according to a July 2026 research brief from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah.

The finding lands amid an ongoing local debate over workforce housing. Approximately 21,000 lower-wage workers commute into the county each day because they cannot afford to live here, according to Summit County Housing Authority Vice Chair Rich Sonntag, while high-income remote workers help drive up property costs.

Summit County's median household income between 2020 and 2024 was $138,000, the highest among counties examined in the study. Nearly 60% of residents 25 and older hold a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to 39% in Salt Lake County and 13% in Piute County, which ranked first for remote work.

"Most of the counties that have higher work-from-home rates are near an urban area. Counties that are incredibly rural tend to have lower work-from-home rates … Summit and Wasatch counties, that fits," lead author Heidi Prior told KPCW.

Prior noted that statewide, 23.1% of workers with bachelor's degrees worked from home in 2024, well above the overall Utah rate of 15.7%. Workers earning $75,000 or more also worked from home at 22.9%.

Statewide decline, local persistence

Across Utah, the share of workers at home fell from 20% in 2021 to 15.7% in 2024, a drop of about 49,000 workers. The state's home-based workforce nearly tripled between 2019 and 2021, jumping from 118,000 to 327,000, before settling at 278,000 in 2024.

Summit County's pooled 2020–2024 rate exceeded 20%, even as the statewide figure declined. The study relied on U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey five-year estimates because the county has fewer than 65,000 residents and is not eligible for single-year data.

Piute and Wayne counties ranked first and third. Wasatch, Kane, and Rich counties followed at 18% to 19.9%.

Housing pressure

The data adds context to proposals the Summit County Housing Authority floated in July. The county council created the authority in late 2024 and set a goal of 1,500 affordable units by 2035.

Sonntag, writing in his personal capacity in a July 29 Park Record article, proposed exploring affordable housing on future open-space acquisitions, identifying infill development sites, and increasing the permitted size of accessory dwelling units from 1,000 to 2,000 square feet on properties of at least one acre. His views do not represent an official Housing Authority position.

Sonntag wrote in that article that high property and construction costs have made it "all but impossible for the free market to provide such housing," calling a scarcity of suitable land "a big part of the problem."

In a separate July 23 county newsletter, he warned that continued resort expansion would lead to "complete local gridlock" if the county keeps relying on commuters from Salt Lake, Heber, and Evanston.

The Housing Authority's 1,500-unit goal has no public timeline for its next vote or policy action tied to the Gardner study's findings.