If time is money, then residents of one Wilmington-area county are spending more of it than nearly all the other counties in North Carolina.
A new analysis of unpaid commute time across more than 2,000 U.S. counties found that North Carolinians spend over 200 hours commuting each year on average. Within the state, Pender County residents had one of the longest average commute times.
Pender County had an average commute tax of $7,204. That represents over 240 hours spent getting to work each year. Meanwhile, New Hanover County residents only spent about 178 hours commuting yearly, tied for the shortest in the state.
What’s a commute tax?
A person's commute isn't typically paid work time,
even though it's required to get to and from a job. Instead, most workers take that expense on themselves, including the cost of gas and vehicle wear.
But another hidden cost is the time spent driving to work.
A recent study from Opus Virtual Offices looked to answer where commuting was costing residents the most in unpaid travel time. Their analysis used U.S. Census data to find the average round-trip commute in 2,192 counties, including 90 in North Carolina, then valued that time at the median full-time pay rate for local workers – a figure the study called a “commute tax.”
How much does a commute cost?
Pender’s commute tax was seventh highest in the state. It was exceeded by both counties with longer commutes, such as Currituck County in the Outer Banks, and counties with higher incomes, such as Wake County.
Neighboring Brunswick and New Hanover counties had average commutes that were shorter than Pender’s on a per-day basis. Brunswick had an average daily commute time of about 51 minutes round-trip -- roughly in line with the state average. New Hanover County’s average round-trip commute was only 41 minutes, tied for the shortest in the state.
Charlie Kingree is the Pender County and trending topics reporter for the StarNews. He can be reached at ckingree@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: How much do daily commutes cost Wilmington-area residents?
