Irvine residents suffer the fourth-costliest commutes among the nation’s largest cities, according to one intriguing metric.

The folks at online loan locator LendingTree looked at commuting and employment data for 100 major U.S. cities to gauge daily to-and-from work costs as measured by wages made by those commuters. Basically, how much you could have made if you weren’t stuck in traffic.

Irvine’s estimated, lofty annual cost was $9,818 for an average daily trek of 26.8 minutes. That’s the 34th longest commute of the 100 big cities tracked.

Now Irvine’s median income is $80,944, third highest among the 100 cities. My trusty spreadsheet tells me this expense equals 12.1% of Irvine paychecks — ranking it the 28th biggest financial burden as a share of income among these big cities.

Please note the median results from the Top 100 cities: $4,692 annual cost for a 24.7-minute commute. Or 11% of a $42,721 national median income.

Look, this study is a bit odd and is obviously harsh on cities with good-paying jobs. High wages per hour are costly in traffic jams, assuming you could make extra money at one’s typical salary if driving was quicker.

But these rankings do expose one reason why some folks will spend their hard-earned cash on congestion-fighting options like toll roads or environmentally friendly vehicles that allow solo drivers carpool-lane access. Otherwise, you may be losing money driving to make money.

Elsewhere in Southern California …

Long Beach: $6,515 annual cost, the No. 19 priciest among big cities. That’s for a 31-minute commute, No. 12 longest of the 100. As a share of $46,318 median income, it’s 14.1% — the No. 13 biggest burden.

Los Angeles: $6,108, No. 22 priciest; 31.8-minute commute; No. 9 of the 100. As a share of $42,108 median income, it’s 14.5% — ranking No. 9.

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Riverside: $6,079, No. 23 priciest; 30.9-minute commute, No. 13 of the 100. As a share of $41,767 median income, it’s 14.6% — No. 8.

Anaheim: $5,200, No. 38 priciest; 27.7-minute commute, No. 29 of the 100. As a share of $41,158 median income, it’s 12.6% — No. 21.

Santa Ana: $3,927, No. 80 priciest; 26.1-minute commute, No. 40 of the 100. As a share of $32,203 median income, it’s 12.2% — No. 27.

It could be worse!

Fremont in the Bay Area had the priciest trips to work with a $12,801 annual tab for commuting 34.9 minutes (fourth-longest, by the way!). And as a share of $82,106 median income, it’s 15.6% — the fourth-biggest financial burden.

And if you hate commuting, Lubbock, Texas, may be for you. Annual commuting costs there ran $2,736 — the lowest in the study — for daily travel of 16.3 minutes, also the lowest in the Top 100. Now median pay is just $36,312 but commuting will eat up just 7.5% — also, the study’s best result!