Commuting—not many words or phrases arguably strike as much dread and annoyance as this one, besides maybe "root canal" or "consciously uncoupling." And the idea of commuting might be even more annoying than it was before the pandemic considering that it’s now costing Americans more money and time.
The average American shells out $8,466 and spends 239 hours commuting yearly, according to calculations of various government data from real estate agent matching service Clever Real Estate, which also gauged the best and worst cities for commuting. That’s 31% more money and 20% more time than before the pandemic; commuting cost the average worker $6,449 and 200 hours in 2019. Today's cost of getting to and from the office is about 19% of commuters’ annual income, finds Clever; that includes an average of $867 on gas and $410 on maintenance a year for a car (obviously, some commuters take public transport).
