Edward Conard

Top Ten New York Times Bestselling Author

  • “Unintended Consequences offers deep and well-argued analyses on almost every issue.” - The New York Times
  • “…a must-read for serious students of economic policy.” - Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
  • “…challenges misconceptions that distort our economic debates.” - Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute
  • “…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
  • “Unintended Consequences provides a provocative interpretation of the causes of the global financial crisis and the policies needed to return to rapid growth. Whether you agree or not, this analysis is well worth reading.” - Nouriel Roubini, New York University; Chairman, Roubini Global Economics
  • “…challenges misconceptions that distort our economic debates.” - Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute
  • “…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
  • “…serious thinking for serious thinkers. …a thought-provoking blueprint for growing middle- and working-class incomes.” - Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
  • “Unintended Consequences represents the most cogent and persuasive analysis of the Financial Crisis to date.” - Andrei Shleifer, 1999 John Bates Clark Medal Winner
  • “Unintended Consequences is far smarter and more thought-provoking than most economics written for the general public” - Greg Mankiw, Harvard University, Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors
  • “…a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality.” - David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • “There are an amazing number of good ideas and interesting points made in Unintended Consequences. The thinking underlying it, and the obvious depth of understanding of the author, are very impressive.” - Steven Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics; 2004 John Bates Clark Medal
Upside of Inequality Oxford Unintended Consequences

AI Summary. Americans spend 60m fewer hours commuting each day than before the pandemic, according to the American Time Use Survey, reallocating that time mainly to leisure and sleep. Younger Americans increased social events, dining out, and exercise, while older groups shifted toward nonmarket work such as childcare and household maintenance.

Davide Melcangi Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Date Posted:
Is Database:
Database

Americans now spend 60m fewer hours commuting daily, reallocating this time to leisure activities & sleeping, as shown by the American Time Use Survey (ATUS).

How do workers use the time saved from less commuting?

Core argument: Americans spend 60m fewer hours commuting each day than before the pandemic, reallocating that time primarily to leisure and sleeping, according to the American Time Use Survey.

Americans now spend 60m fewer hours commuting daily compared to pre-pandemic levels, reallocating this time primarily to leisure activities and sleeping, as shown by the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). The reduction in commuting has led to a notable decrease in overall work hours, with remote work only partially offsetting this decline. Younger Americans have particularly increased their leisure time, engaging more in social events, dining out, and exercising, while older age groups have focused on nonmarket work like childcare and household maintenance. These shifts highlight the growing preference for flexible work arrangements, as the saved commute time allows individuals to prioritize personal and family activities. The findings underscore the potential long-term impact of remote work on time allocation and lifestyle choices.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Americans spend 60m fewer hours commuting each day than before the pandemic, reallocating that time primarily to leisure and sleeping, according to the American Time Use Survey.
  2. The drop in commuting has accompanied a decrease in overall work hours, with remote work only partially offsetting the decline, according to the American Time Use Survey.
  3. Younger Americans increased leisure time through social events, dining out, and exercise, while older age groups shifted toward nonmarket work such as childcare and household maintenance.

Analysis from New York Fed shows that Americans spend 60 million fewer commuting hours each day vs. pre-pandemic. They allocated this time primarily toward leisure activities and sleeping, while reducing overall work hours.

What Have Workers Done with the Time Freed up by Commuting Less?: Extended Excerpt Image 1

“…In the aggregate, Americans now spend 60 million fewer hours traveling to work each day. We investigate how people spend this saved time on other activities. The chart above shows how one hour of foregone commute time is allocated toward other activities. First, we find a substantial fall in time spent working. Overall paid-work hours fell because of substitution toward other activities throughout the day: we see notable increases in leisure time and sleeping. The rise in leisure was particularly pronounced among younger Americans, who reported spending more time at social events, eating at restaurants or bars, and exercising….”

David Dam, Davide Melcangi, Laura Pilossoph, and Aidan Toner-Rodgers, "What Have Workers Done with the Time Freed up by Commuting Less?,"Federal Reserve Bank Of New York, https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2022/10/what-have-workers-done-with-the-time-freed-up-by-commuting-less/

What Have Workers Done with the Time Freed up by Commuting Less?

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the way Americans spend their time. One of the most enduring shifts has occurred in the workplace, with millions of employees making the switch to work from home. Even as the pandemic has waned, more than 15 percent of full-time employees remain fully remote and an additional 30 percent work in hybrid arrangements (Barrero, Bloom, and Davis). These changes have substantially reduced time spent commuting to work; in the aggregate, Americans now spend 60 million fewer hours traveling to work each day. In this post, we investigate how people spend this saved time on other activities. Using detailed data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), we find that employed individuals allocate their saved commute time toward leisure activities and sleeping, while reducing overall work hours.

Measuring Time Spent

The ATUS is a nationally representative survey that measures both the amount of time people spend on various activities and where these activities take place. ATUS respondents are randomly selected from a subset of households in the Current Population Survey, allowing us to link demographic and employment information to respondents’ time use information. Because COVID-19 disrupted the survey’s data collection between March 18 and May 9 of 2020, the survey results for 2020 reflect data only from May 10 to December 31. To make comparisons with prior years, we restrict the data to this period in the other years as well.

To examine how workers allocate their saved commute time, we apply the methodology of Aguiar, Hurst, and Karabarbounis to the COVID-19 period. For those interested in the details, we aggregate individual ATUS responses to the state-level and exploit variation across states in the extent of commute time reduction. After categorizing more than 400 time use activities into nine major categories, we regress yearly changes in time use for each category on changes in commute time. Our first-differences approach enables us to account for time-invariant state characteristics, and we also include a variety of state-level control variables to account for worker composition. Across specifications, we restrict our analysis to employed individuals in order to exclude reductions in commute times due to job loss. Additionally, to account for the possibility that COVID-19 induced firms to cut hours just as employees were shifting to remote work, we also consider a sample of only full-time employees and find similar results.

Changes in Time Use

The main results are presented in the chart below in which we show how one hour of foregone commute time is allocated toward other activities. First, we find a substantial fall in time spent working; the decrease in hours worked away from home is only partially offset by an increase in working at home. This is in line with results from Bloom, Han, and Liang, who find that remote work led to a decrease in overall hours worked. Moreover, our findings help reconcile earlier work on commute times, which found that even though employees reported allocating 35 percent of their saved commute time to work, they spent fewer total hours in paid employment (Barrero, Bloom, and Davis). Our results from the ATUS suggest that although individuals may have increased time working in the precise time-slot they used to commute, overall paid-work hours fell because of substitution toward other activities throughout the day.

Second, we see notable increases in leisure time and sleeping. The rise in leisure was particularly pronounced among younger Americans, who reported spending more time at social events, eating at restaurants or bars, and exercising. Older age groups, on the other hand, tended to allocate more time to nonmarket work, such as activities related to childcare, the maintenance of the household, repairs, and meal preparation.

What Have Workers Done with the Time Freed up by Commuting Less?: Extended Excerpt Image 2


Who Are the Activities Conducted With?

The ATUS also includes information on who physically accompanied the respondent during each activity. We use this variable to classify which activities were done with people outside of the immediate household. We categorize solitary activities and those with household members into one category, and activities with friends, co-workers, clients, and non-household family members into the other. As we would expect, the next chart shows that time spent on activities done alone or with household members increased, such as leisure (+2.30 hours) and nonmarket activities (+0.69). Differentiating by age, we see that younger people were the only group to significantly increase their leisure time with non-household members (+1.13), likely reflecting the differential risks of COVID-19.

What Have Workers Done with the Time Freed up by Commuting Less?: Extended Excerpt Image 3


Our results show important relationships in the substitutability of time use. The findings lend credence to the various reports on employees’ preferences for flexible work arrangements, given that cutting the commute enables people to spend their time on other activities, such as childcare or leisure. This added benefit of working from home—for those who want it—will be an important consideration for the future of flexible work arrangements.

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