The Commute Class System: Who Pays for the Trip to Work (and Who Doesn’t)
by Laurie Ruettimann
Your employer just added six unpaid weeks to your work year and didn’t tell you.
A recent MyPerfectResume analysis looked at the wage value of time Americans spend commuting. The headline might sound dramatic, but the numbers are real: the average U.S. worker spends 223 hours a year commuting, equal to $8,158 at the national average hourly wage. In cities like San Jose, San Francisco, and New York, that figure goes over $12,000.
No one is cutting your pay. But every return-to-office mandate without data, analysis, or explanation has added six weeks of unpaid time to your year. That’s time you could have spent sleeping, with family, exercising, or focusing on meaningful work.
They took it back. They didn’t even say thank you.
What makes this even more troubling is that there’s a clear class divide, and the commute highlights it best.
Different Rules For Different People
When Brian Niccol became Starbucks CEO in 2024, his offer letter said he would not be required to relocate from Newport Beach, California, to Seattle. He’d commute nearly 1,000 miles by corporate Gulfstream. In September 2025, the board removed the $250,000 annual cap on his personal jet use, citing security concerns. In fiscal 2025, his jet travel cost Starbucks just under $1 million. Add $1.1 million in security and $370,000 in temporary housing. His total compensation? $31 million.
This is the same company that now requires corporate employees to be on-site four days a week.
Now consider the other side. A Starbucks barista earning $17 an hour with a 30-minute commute each way spends about 250 hours a year traveling. That’s an invisible pay cut of about $4,250, or 12% of her yearly income, which she pays herself. The CEO’s commute costs over $2 million, all covered by the company.
It’s the same company and the same attendance requirements, but the rules are completely different.
This isn’t just a workplace policy. It’s a class system, and the commute makes it obvious.
What Should Change At Work
It’s simple: if you require employees to commute, you should cover the cost.
Sticking with RTO? Be transparent about your reasoning. Most return-to-office mandates were based on instinct and a general wish for “culture.” If you create a policy that costs employees thousands each year, show that it’s justified. Share productivity and collaboration data. If you can’t, you’re managing for control, not results. Employees already see this, and investors should as well.
If you require commuting, help cover the cost. In 2026, pre-tax commuter benefits are capped at $325 a month, but most employers don’t offer that. If coming to work is mandatory, include those costs in compensation. Giving car allowances only to executives isn’t a real benefits plan. It reveals your priorities.
Read your own proxy statement. Then ask yourself what it looks like from the outside. When the filing shows a CEO flying private while the workforce is told presence equals performance, that’s not just bad optics. That’s a retention problem waiting to happen. If you built flexibility into your own arrangement, extending it to your workforce isn’t generosity. It’s basic consistency.
Employees can take action as well. Use anonymous surveys, give feedback through internal channels, and encourage local leaders to improve transit. Write to investors and connect with advocacy groups. The data is available. Make sure it reaches those who can make changes.
What Workers Can Do Right Now
If you’re stuck in traffic because someone higher up decided in-person meetings are more important than your time, don’t just accept it.
Figure out your own hidden pay cut. Take your one-way commute, double it, multiply by 250 workdays, convert to hours, and then multiply by your hourly wage. Once you see the total in dollars, it’s hard to ignore, and so will the person you’re negotiating with.
Factor commute costs into every job offer. Not just gas and parking, but the time value. A $5K raise with a 45-minute commute each way is a pay cut. Run the numbers before you accept.
Build your case before you need it. If you were effective during remote or hybrid periods, document the evidence now. Your output, your response times, your project completions. Opinions don’t win the flexibility negotiation. Metrics do.
Read the proxy statement. Find out what travel and flexibility perks leadership carved out for themselves. That’s leverage when the “we’re all in this together” messaging starts up again.
Run a premortem on your own compliance. Ask yourself: if I’m still making this commute in two years and nothing has changed, what will I have lost? What will I have missed? If the answer makes you uncomfortable, that’s information. Use it. (Here’s how to run a premortem.)
If none of that works, hold onto the job only as long as it takes to find a better one. Not every battle is worth fighting from the inside. Sometimes the most strategic move is to leave.
The Part Employers Should Read Twice
Nothing good happens when companies make leaving seem better than staying.
More businesses are launched during recessions than at any other time. When talented people feel pushed out, they don’t just look for new jobs. They start their own companies. Tomorrow’s competitors may be the employees you lost, not the businesses you see now.
These former employees know your company’s weaknesses and margins. They also know how to attract your top talent, because they were once part of it. Every employee who leaves could become a competitor who already understands your business inside and out.
The hidden pay cut is not just an idea. It shows how much you take from your employees without giving back. That gap has real costs, even if you haven’t measured them yet.