These US cities have the most expensive commutes, with some costing workers more than $10,000 a year

Chicago.Bob Krist/Getty Images

• These US cities have the costliest commutes, according to a new analysis from LendingTree.
• Workers in 6 of these cities lose more than $10,000 a year from their commutes, the analysis says.
• The new findings come as many companies weigh plans to bring workers back to the office again.

Many companies are working on plans to bring their employees back to the office. When they do, some workers will once again be paying a hefty price for their commutes.

Millions of Americans, in fact, will lose more than $10,000 a year getting to and from work, according to a new analysis from LendingTree.

Read more: Employers are waging a war over work from home. WFH is winning.

Researchers gathered commute times for the 100 biggest US cities by total workers from the Census Bureau's 2019 1-year American Community Survey, the latest available federal data.

The analysts then used Census Bureau data to estimate the average hourly earnings in these cities. When they multiplied this by the commute time, they were able to calculate these commutes' opportunity costs, which is the value of the alternative activities for which people could have used the time instead, such as sleeping in or being on the clock.

Here are the cities where American workers have the highest yearly opportunity costs for their commutes: