Counties with the worst commutes in America
Most workers in the United States still commute to their jobs鈥攁nd the majority do it by driving there alone, according to . And as more employers abandon work-from-home policies and require people to come into the office, traffic has increased accordingly. The 2024 INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard, released in 2025, found that nine out of 10 of the largest metros in the U.S. saw an to the city center, with the average driver spending more than 40 extra hours a week stuck in traffic. But certain parts of the country have even worse slogs into work, racking up even more lost time.
麻豆原创 examined the Census Bureau's 2021 to compile a list of counties with the worst commutes. The survey measures the average commute time in minutes for workers 16 years and older. To determine commute times, the American Community Survey asks respondents where they work (including whether they work from home), the time their trip starts, their mode of transportation, and the time it takes to get there.
On average, it takes Americans about 25 and a half minutes to get to work. Of course, many who commute to work have similar commute times returning home, if not longer, due to traffic congestion. The survey, however, only measures time spent commuting to work, not time spent at home from work.
Workers living in counties in the U.S. with the longest commutes to work say they spend around 40 minutes in transit鈥攔oughly the length of the . When considering the Department of Agriculture estimates that people spend preparing meals on any given day, it's no wonder American workers have pushed to reclaim personal time by where possible.
