- Young adults are taking the supercommute into work, a trend that will only likely continue as return-to-office mandates from Amazon, JP Morgan, and others continue.
Molly Hopkins, age 30, has become well-acquainted with the Amtrak—America’s national rail. Her corporate odyssey begins as she walks out of her door at 6:30 in the morning. On her way to New York City’s midtown, Hopkins departs from Exton, Pennsylvania (just on the outskirts of Philadelphia). She clocks in a normal day of work as a senior marketing manager in the commercial real estate industry. And then she returns home by 8 PM.
She is, of course, a supercommuter. While her story is often the exception, given the cost and general agita of such a journey, Hopkins' way of life might be set to make some traction. Super commuting, defined by Standord researchers as traveling 75 miles or more to work, has been on the rise since the pandemic.
Taking advantage of newfound flexibility, many employees moved to places with cheaper rent or more space. Some likely left thinking they’d have to take the train in less than they do now. As companies issue in-person mandates, these workers are now often forced to go into the office more than they anticipated when first signing the lease. The rate of supercommuters has surged by 32% since the pandemic, per Stanford’s research.
And it’s not just in the U.S., research from Trainline shows that the number of employees spending more than three hours from work and back has doubled since before the pandemic in the U.K.
While supercommuters often conjure up images of parents locked into a lease in the suburbs and commuting into the city, a new type of traveler is emerging in the post-pandemic workforce: DINKs, or dual-income-no-kids, are proving to be quite compatible with this lifestyle.
“Folks aged in their 30s and 40s are the biggest commuters,” Nicholas Bloom, professor of economics at Stanford University, tells Fortune, pointing to data he worked on which shows that people in this age range live further from work.
“Transparently, I am at the ideal stage of life to be a super commuter,” Hopkins tells Fortune, adding that she’s married without kids and therefore feels less pressure to go out but still has more flexibility since she doesn’t feel the need to rush home to any children. “I tell this to everyone that asks how I do it: it's the best time in my life to be doing it. I have no other major responsibilities outside of my job.”
Caroline Colvin, age 23, tells Business Insider that she wakes up at 5 a.m. to catch the train from New York City to Baltimore three times a week. While supercommuters often live outside of major metropolitan areas in order to save money, the Gen Zer says that living in NYC helps her pursue her acting dreams while keeping her main job. Also, her fiancê relocated to the city for a job.
"It's a hard commute," she says of the three-hour journey that sees her return home at 9 pm.
RTO will fuel supercommuting
Despite the unsustainable nature of this lifestyle, supercommuting is not going anywhere anytime soon. Rather than being a fixture of the pandemic, the sudden surge of return-to-office mandates will likely force more workers into commuting for hours on end—in 2025, at least.
“Longer run they will either move job or move house—probably pretty equally split—but in the short-run they have no option if this is enforced but to increase the number of super commutes,” Bloom says.
Hopkins, who knew she was going to have to commute once a week to the office when signing on, explains that going into a city while living in a remote area can be energizing. While it can be a salve for some of the isolation she feels while working from home, there are also some pretty heavy downsides.
“It’s time-consuming and expensive,” she notes. “I wake up much earlier and don't get home until late, so that eliminates any opportunity for me to run errands, see friends, or go to the gym before or after work,” adding that tickets and the price of meals in New York City tend to add up.
She believes that being “a super commuter is really only fit for certain demographics,” those who have no kids, live close to a train station, and have the energy for long days. “It's a narrow window,” she muses, predicting that it will one day become less common because of that. While a semi-popular lifestyle for young professionals, she thinks “the trend will die out as they get older and life gets more demanding outside of work.”
