Commutes are getting longer as hybrid workers make trade-offs
Story at a glance
- The share of "super-commutes," those 75 miles or longer, is up by nearly a third since the start of the pandemic.
- Employees who no longer have to trek into the office each day appear to be more willing to tolerate a longer commute once or twice a week if it means a higher standard of living further away.
- As a share of all commutes, 18.5% are now 40 miles or longer, up from 15.8% before the pandemic.
(NewsNation) — Americans' morning commutes are getting longer as remote work and rising housing costs continue to change the way people live.
The share of "super-commutes," those 75 miles or longer, is up by nearly a third since the start of the pandemic, according to new research from Stanford University.
Those trips to the office typically take two hours and 20 minutes each way, nearly five hours total, the study found. For workers who super-commute daily, that's almost a full 24-hour day of travel per week.
However, a daily journey may not be the norm. Researchers suspect hybrid work is driving the shift.
Employees who no longer have to trek into the office each day appear to be more willing to tolerate a longer commute once or twice a week if it means a higher standard of living further away.
In that sense, workers are making a trade-off.
“Do I live in a small apartment that doesn’t work for us but I have a shorter commute? Or do I just have two days of, you know, driving hell?” Nicholas Bloom, an economist who co-authored the Stanford research, told Marketplace.
Bloom's analysis looked at two million trips across the nation's ten largest cities and found long commutes have become more common since the pandemic. As a share of all commutes, 18.5% are now 40 miles or longer, up from 15.8% before the pandemic. Super-commutes now account for about 3% of all commutes.
Skyrocketing housing prices could be another factor pushing workers away from urban centers and into more affordable areas.
Research from the National Low Income Housing Coalition has found that a lack of affordable housing increases commute times, which disproportionately impacts low-wage workers.
High-cost-of-living cities like Washington, D.C. (+100%), and New York City (+89%) have seen the biggest jump in super-commutes, though for now, young workers and high earners are more likely to live farther away.
The share of 18- to 34-year-old hybrid workers who said they're willing to add more than 20 minutes to their commute jumped from 7% to 15% between 2021 and 2023, according to a Fannie Mae report.
Some young people have gone to even more extreme lengths to avoid paying high rent, commuting by plane several times a week.
A separate study from Gusto, a payroll and benefits company, found the increase in employee-employer distance is largest for the highest-earning workers.
In 2018, workers earning more than $200,000 per year lived on average 12 miles away from work, but by 2023, that distance had increased to 42 miles. The report attributed the trend to the rise in remote work.