5 hours to travel from home to work: how Americans sacrifice time to save on housing

Americans spend 5 hours a day getting to work. This is a trend seen in many expensive US cities such as New York, Phoenix and Washington, DC, reports Insider.

Photo: iStock.com/AzmanL

New research, first published in The Wall Street Journal, shows that more workers are spending long hours commuting to get to work. work. They travel more than 120 km in each direction. This can amount to almost five hours a day. More and more people are ready to make such a sacrifice.

5 hours and 120 km

The number of Americans spending significant amounts of time commuting to work has risen sharply since the pandemic. Stanford University economists Nick Bloom and Alex Finan found that the share of one-way trips of at least 120 miles increased by 32% since the pandemic, representing 2,9% of total trips. They found that some trips lasted almost five hours each way, and some started at 3am.

On the subject: How to make money on Amazon with zero investment: personal experience of a guy with an income of $49 per month

Economists have noted that in the country's 10 largest cities, the share of one-way commutes greater than 65 km has increased over the past few years. It accounts for 18,5% of trips. This trend continued throughout each weekday.

Bloom and Finan compared data from November 2019 to February 2020, and from November 2023 to February 2024. They determined that commutes begin outside the city center and end in the city center between 7 and 10 a.m.

Bloom and Finan noted that as people travel less to offices (many of them have moved from cities to the suburbs), long-distance commuting has become more popular. A study by WFH Research found that the number of people working from home has increased approximately fivefold since the pandemic.

Difference by region

There are also benefits to longer commutes. They often turn out to be faster than comparable pre-pandemic trips because work at home indirectly reduces traffic. According to economists at Stanford University, traffic speeds increased by about 10% during this period.

In some cities, more and more people are choosing long trips. New York saw an increase in such trips, from 1,9% to 3,6%. Los Angeles saw a 20% increase in commuting distances of at least 55 km, and Washington, D.C. saw a 100% increase in the number of workers commuting from the suburbs. Phoenix, Arizona, a city that has seen an influx of new residents and resulting increases in home values ​​in recent years, also saw a 57% increase in long commutes.

Big houses instead of apartments

The surge in long commutes in some of the country's most expensive cities is driven in part by the rise of remote work. When COVID-19 shut down much of the country, millions of people suddenly moved their entire lives into their cramped apartments. Demand for more spacious homes has increased dramatically.

And because there aren't enough large apartments in urban areas to meet that demand, many families with young children have fled cities during the pandemic. Previous data from Gusto showed that workers aged 30 to 34 more than doubled their commute to work compared to pre-pandemic levels.

People working from home tend to be professionals and managers, that is, highly paid workers between the ages of 20 and 50 with children.

“So imagine a college graduate with two young children who wants to leave an apartment in New York City and move to a suburb 1,5 hours away for a backyard and local schools,” Bloom said.

You may be interested in: top New York news, stories of our immigrants and helpful tips about life in the Big Apple - read it all on ForumDaily New Y

Rising prices for housing in the city center are also forcing many families to move to distant areas of the suburbs. Some of the former city dwellers who fled to the suburbs when the pandemic hit began to regret their move as employers began calling them back to the office.

But others are happy with their daily lifestyle. Kyle Rice, 38 year old worker EMT living in Willmington, Delaware, commutes to New York City are two hours each way. It costs him $1510 a month. However, he said Delaware's lower cost of living is worth the effort, as he makes six figures at his job in New York.

Read also on ForumDaily:

12 locations in Northern California where you can camp on the beach

English words whose ambiguity can be confusing

A way to save in Target, which many do not know

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.