Photo: Getty Images; Chart: Payscale
The richer you are, the farther you commute
You might think that Americans with well-paying jobs would live as close to work as possible to make their hectic lives less stressful. But it's the poorest Americans in large metro areas who have the shortest commutes and higher-earning employees endure the longest commutes, according to a new survey by Seattle's PayScale. Poorer workers, of course, might not be able to afford to commute long distances. And wealthier people look for the best neighborhoods and school districts and the largest houses for the money. But they typically do not travel more than 40 minutes each way no matter what they're earning. New Yorkers earning more than $100,000 have the longest commutes (39.3 minutes each way), and Minneapolis workers in that salary range have the shortest one-way travel time (23.7 minutes).
Editor's Note: This report is based on 2.8 million U.S. employee profiles collected by PayScale that contain work location, compensation, and one-way commute time information. The 15 largest US metropolitan areas are based on the Combined Statistical Areas (CSA) and Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) defined by the Office of Management & Budget (December 2003 definition), and ranked by the 2005 Census Bureau metro population estimates. The commute times are median one-way door-to-door commute times as experienced in the past year. The commutes can include driving, walking, or mass transit, and the workers' jobs can be anywhere in the metropolitan area, not necessarily in the core of the main city. The population and median household income come from the U.S. Census and are for the main city in the metro area.
Source: PayScale
