New polling reveals that the vast majority of US adults feel comfortable returning to the office, but the April jobs report shows how hard that will be

• A Morning Consult poll shows 69% of US adults working remotely feel comfortable returning to the office.
• But that differs wildly across incomes, with way more people making over $100,000 OK going back.
• The dismal April jobs report shows restoring workplace normalcy will take longer than expected.

New polling shows that the vast majority of US adults working remotely feel comfortable returning to their normal workplace, but the latest jobs report shows that the return to normalcy will take longer than expected.

Morning Consult has tracked public sentiments about daily life during the pandemic since March 2020.

As of May 8, approximately 69% of remote workers said they felt comfortable returning to their normal workplace compared to the 29% of people who said they didn't feel safe going back just yet.

But while nearly 7-in-10 respondents said they felt comfortable returning to the office, a smaller proportion said they actually want to return to the office once it's safe: 61% - practically the same response from January 2021.

When broken down by annual income, however, the proportion of workers who actively want to return to the office begins to diverge from the overall data.

According to the crosstabs provided by Morning Consult, 63% of respondents who earn more than $100,000 annually said they would return to the office as soon as they safely can, compared to just 40% of respondents who make less than $50,000 a year.

The April jobs report shows how tricky a return to 'normal' will be

Fewer people were teleworking due to the pandemic in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Household Survey. In March, 21% of employed workers were still remote; that number dropped to 18.3% in April.

But, on the whole, April's jobs report painted a confusing picture of employment and economic recovery, as gains fell far short of expectations. Economists anticipated that the economy would add 1 million nonfarm payrolls; instead, only 266,000 were added.

In fact, unemployment actually ticked up to 6.1% from 6%, instead of dropping to the predicted 5.8%.

All told, the jobs report illustrated the perhaps rocky recovery road ahead. Non-office jobs actually saw the biggest gains: Leisure and hospitality added 331,000 jobs, driven by hiring in bars and other food services.

More Americans are looking to get back to work; the labor force participation rate ticked up in April (which brought up the unemployment rate, since those people now looking to reenter the labor force are classified as unemployed).

But the jobs report signaled that getting people back to work is going to be a little bit harder going forward. Significantly, experts say access to affordable and accessible childcare is a major issue. It's keeping parents of prime working age - especially mothers - out of the workforce.

It's an issue that's on the mind of President Joe Biden. On Monday, the White House said it was going to accelerate distributing childcare provisions and assistance allocated in the American Rescue Plan.

"These funds will also allow states to provide over 800,000 families with subsidies to pay for childcare," Biden said in an address. "Simply put, it's going to help working parents get back to work."

Only once more people can go back to work, and more people feel safe doing so, will we see a real return to "normal" in the workforce.