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Irvine Ranks Among the Nation’s Costliest Commutes
Commutes are especially costly in California, where wages and traffic are high, meaning valuable time is wasted staring at other people’s bumpers. Texas generally fares better, Houston notwithstanding. Data on commutes and employment for 100 major U.S. cities were used to calculate the cost of getting to and from work each day and revealed how much a person could have made if they weren’t stuck in traffic
California cities took five of the top 10 spots for the highest cost of commute per person, according to research by LendingTree. In addition to Fremont, full-time workers in San Francisco, Irvine, San Jose and Oakland spend at least $8,549 of their time commuting to work.
The commuting cost for those living in Irvine ranks as the nation’s fourth worst for big cities. The annual cost of Irvine commutes was $9,818 for a one-way trek that spanned 26.8 minutes. The cost of an Irvine commute equates to roughly 12.1% of the $80,944 annual median income earned. That hefty share of income going to a commute translates to a No. 28 ranking among large cities in terms of financial burden.
By comparison, commuters in Fremont, CA spend $12,801 a year (No. 1 nationally), the average worker in San Francisco spends $11,719 in time spent commuting (No. 2 ranking), and the per-worker cost of a commute annually in Los Angeles is $6,108 (No 22 ranking).
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