Still working from home? Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey doesn't approve

Working from home instead of fighting for a parking space or putting on pants to come work in a downtown Minneapolis office building? Mayor Jacob Frey says you're a loser.

The mayor made the comment Wednesday at the Minneapolis Downtown Council's annual meeting, held at the Armory. In an interview a few hours later, after the comment started to spread on social media, he said it was a joke.

Here's what Frey said, according to a recording captured by Axios reporter Nick Halter: "I don't know if you saw this study the other day, but what this study clearly showed: when people who have the ability to come downtown to an office don't — when they stay home sitting on their couch, with their nasty cat blanket, diddling on their laptop ... if they do that for a few months, you become a loser! We're not losers, are we?"

Some laughter can be heard in the recording.

Frey later confirmed in an interview that he was joking and that there is no real study coming to the conclusion that people are losers, he said.

"It was so obviously a joke. It's a study that doesn't exist about people that don't exist in that nonexistent study," Frey said.

About a thousand people were in attendance at the event Wednesday, said Downtown Council President and CEO Adam Duininck. The group is a member organization representing downtown business owners.

"I think he was just trying to make a joke," Duininck said. "It was met with mixed results but an attempt at humor was made."

Frey continued on after his initial dig at losers. "Adam Duininck, are you a loser?" He went on to ask the same of several other bigwigs in attendance.

Reaction on local social media to Halter's tweet with the mayor's comment was decidedly more incredulous. Some posted that they did not appreciate the onus being put on workers to spend money on lunch, gas, coffee and parking to help the downtown core recover.

Frey has been bullish on enticing businesses to mandate that workers come back downtown post-pandemic to fill otherwise empty office buildings.

Many of downtown's largest employers have hybrid work policies, including the city of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Target and Xcel. A city spokesperson said that 67% of city employees are in the office or field full-time, and another 10% are in the office three days a week.

Downtown-wide, about two out of three workers are back downtown at least one day a week. The top employers have a two or three day a week requirement, Duininck said.

"I'm not joking about wanting people back downtown," Frey said. "I've said that everywhere."