In California, a lot of people are making long commutes to get to and from their workplaces.
They’re known as “super commuters,” and in California they’re making long treks that underscore how the state’s affordable housing crisis is causing employees to live farther away from their workplaces. The super commuters also are facing higher gas prices cause by the ware in Iran.
According to a study by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), one in 11 California workers, accounting for 8.9% of the workforce, spends at least one hour driving to work
That ranks California as the third-highest in the nation, follwing Maryland (9.8%) and Georgia (9%), the study showed.
Super commuters are professionals who travel long distances to get to work, according to Edhat, a news website in Santa Barbara, a 2024 study by the Pacific Southwest Region University Transportation Center defined super commuters as those who travel more than 50 miles or 90 minutes.
That’s the case for many thousands of workers in California, because commuting has become a lengthy and exhausting process that consumes several hours every day for each of them.
The PPIC study showed that super commuters in the state are mostly men (65%) in their 30s or 40s, with middle-aged incomes (median wages of $68,000 vs. $50,000).
Commutes Not Evenly Distributed
Disproportionately, they are from households with children (50%).
PPIC said that while long commutes seem to be a common practice among workers in the state, it is not evenly distributed.
Lengthy commutes are mostly concentrated in exurbs, which are communities located at the outer edge of metropolitan areas, beyond the suburbs, where land and housing are more affordable, according to the PPIC analysis.
A study by the California Chamber of Commerce showed that median home prices in the state reached $868,150 in 2024, making the state the most expensive housing market in the nation.
Among the cities with at least 10,000 workers, Edhat noted that the highest shares of super commuters are found in places such as Los Banos (48%), Adelanto (36%), Mountain House (35%), Lathrop (31%), and Tracy (31%), based on 2020–2024 American Community Survey data.
According to PPIC, all those communities are adjacent, but not close, to large employment centers in the Bay Area and coastal Southern California.
Housing in these communities tends to be cheaper, with high homeownership rates, the analysis noted.
Living in Affordable Communities
Also, homeownership rates among super commuters are much higher than among other workers (65% vs. 55%), according to PPIC.
By living in affordable communities, super commuters usually keep housing costs manageable, the PPIC said, although transportation costs are high.
Over the past few years, more families are willing to stay farther away from their workplaces in exchange for owning a home, the PPIC study said.
According to the PPIC, the number and share of super commuters in California revealed a significant jump between 2010 and 2019, when it said that job growth was mostly concentrated in coastal metros where housing costs increased sharply.
The PPIC noted that the COVID-19 pandemic caused a temporary but dramatic reversal of super commuting because the widespread adoption of remote work eliminated daily commuting for millions of workers almost overnight.
However, as more workplaces are requiring employees to return to the office, the PPIC noted that super commuting has been increasing to pre-pandemic levels.
