In determining where to live, workers must balance the trade- offbetween high rents and short commutes against low rents and longcommutes. 

The most expensive commutes in the U.S. probably aren't whereyou would imagine. The commuters who face the highest costs aren'tcoming from the suburbs of New York City or San Francisco. Thesecommuters live within 65 miles of Washington.

Workers from Charles County, in southern Maryland, spent 388hours — or just under two and a half weeks — on average, travelingto and from work in 2017, according to Bloomberg analysis of U.S. Census data.

Residents in Fauquier County and Stafford County in Virginia,more than 35 miles (56 kilometers) from Washington, face similarcommuting costs.

Bloomberg calculated a county resident's opportunity cost byconverting hours spent commuting into a dollar amount based on theaverage annual income of a full-time worker. The index alsofactored in the percentage of workers who commute before 6 a.m.under the assumption that leaving that early is undesirable formost and warrants a higher opportunity cost.

While the residents of these counties may decide to commutebased on a variety of factors, they typically have higher incomesthan the average for the region, according to Brad Hansen, aneconomics professor at University of Mary Washington inFredericksburg, Va., about an hour's drive from Washington.

“They find the jobs in D.C. and Northern Virginia moreattractive, largely because of higher income, but they find livingin places like Stafford, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania moreattractive because of lower housing prices or they like living in aless urban area,” Hansen wrote in an email.

Time vs. money

How do residents determine whether the commute is worth it? Theymust balance the trade- off between high rents and short commutesagainst low rents and long commutes, according to Ferdinando Monte,an assistant professor of economics at Georgetown University.

“You would like to be close to a place that has high wages orhigh amenities but you don't want to pay the high rents,” Montesaid. “Rather than paying for higher rent, you can pay that incommuting time.”

Apparently, many workers taking residence in the satelliteneighborhoods of San Francisco and the New York-New Jersey metroarea also prefer the commute over higher rents, according to theindex.

Sprawling cities

One might ask how the counties in Virginia and Maryland rankedhigher than counties outside New York City and San Francisco. Onereason may be simple geography — how easy it is for a city tosprawl out or cover a larger area, according to Monte.

For example, San Francisco is hilly and surrounded by water onthree sides, which impedes sprawl, he said. The Washington area isless inhibited by such factors. Also, Congress enacted a law morethan 100 years ago that limits the height of buildings within thecity. This has kept the D.C. skyline low; urban sprawl hasensued.

Arlington County, Virginia, where Amazon proposed to build itsexpansive new headquarters, scored the lowest among the 14 largestcounties in the greater Washington region. From home to work, localresidents spent just shy of 30 minutes commuting — the equivalentof 12 percent of $106,670, the average pay for a full-time workerin the county.

In 2014, the Metrorail system added four new stations inVirginia. Construction is underway for an additional six stationson an 11-mile stretch of track that will include a transfer fromthe Washington Dulles International Airport to downtownWashington.

The index shows some portion of Americans choose lengthycommutes but there's an increasing number of them who work fromhome. Technological advancements and the rise of the “gig economy”have enabled jobs to be performed anywhere with Internetaccess.

To access the full data set click HERE

Methodology

The index scored 800+ counties for the highest cost of commutingbased on three metrics: the cost of commuting in equivalent dollaramount, the percentage of income this matches, and the percentageof the workforce that leaves before 6:00 a.m. The three metrics areweighted at 70 percent, 20 percent and 10 percent,respectively.

The absolute cost of commuting was calculated by convertingtotal commuter hours into a dollar amount based on the averageannual income of a full-time employee in the region. The index doesnot include ancillary costs for transportation and parking.

Read more: 

• 10 U.S. cities with spookiest and most stressfulcommutes
• Suburban offices are cool again
• Given the choice, most workers prefer working atthe office. But they still want a choice.