As time marches on the daily commute gets longer according to the U.S. Census Bureau. As an article by Christopher Ingraham in the 16 September 2017 Washington Post points out, the average commute time in the U.S. has grown to 26.6 minutes each way. Among other consequences, this has promoted steady progress in telecommuting.
Let’s go through the numbers. Assume that the average American worker works 49 weeks annually after vacation and holidays are omitted from the total of 52 weeks. At 5 work days per week and two commute trips per work day that’s 490 commute trips annually. At 26.6 minutes per commute trip we find that the average commuter is spending 13,034 minutes, or 217.23 hours annually sitting in traffic. That’s 5.4 40-hours work weeks! More than a month of workdays uncompensated.