WASHINGTON—The number of commuters who travel 90 minutes or more to get to work increased sharply between 2010 and 2015, a shift that traffic experts, real estate analysts and others attribute to skyrocketing housing costs and a reluctance to move, born of memories of the 2008 financial crisis.

In all but 10 states, the number of “super commuters” increased over the period, and in California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, North Dakota and Rhode Island, it grew by more than 40 per cent, according to census data. The growth came amid an overall increase in the number of commuters as the economy improved, but the increase in the number of people with the longest rides, 23 per cent, was almost three times the increase in the number of those with shorter commutes, close to 8 per cent.

People with 90-minute commutes still represent a small share of commuters — ranging from 1 per cent in Nebraska to nearly 6 per cent in New York. But analysts say the spike in long trips reflects several broader trends in the economy.

After years of sharp rent increases, service workers can’t compete for urban apartments near their jobs. Those who found new jobs after the recession may not feel secure enough yet to move closer to work, especially as prices soar near job centres.

The term “commuter” includes anybody who has a job and doesn’t work at home.

In tech job centres like Seattle and San Francisco, low-income workers are moving farther and farther away while high-income workers can still afford to live close to work, according to a 2015 Zillow study that looked at changes through 2014.

“While commute times for higher-income earners hasn’t changed much over the past 10 years, commutes are getting longer and longer for low-income workers,” said Lauren Braun, a Zillow spokeswoman.

Even among those who could afford to live anywhere, more are choosing faraway places because they can telecommute much of the time, said Mitchell Moss, an urban policy professor at New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management who has studied super commuters.

“The real change is that the suburbs have been eclipsed,” Moss said. “People are moving directly from the city to the hinterlands.”

The number of super commuters grew in a variety of jobs, from lawyers and computer scientists to teachers, cooks, janitors and maids, according to a Stateline analysis of census data provided by ipums.org at the University of Minnesota.

Among elementary and middle school teachers, for instance, super commuters increased by 26 per cent from 2010 to 2015. Police officers similarly saw a 31 per cent increase in super commuters.

Oil and gas workers were the most likely to have super commutes, at 19 per cent in 2015, while 18 per cent of aircraft pilots and 16 per cent of elevator repairmen faced rides of 90 minutes or more. On the other hand, less than 1 per cent of telemarketers and funeral embalmers who commute to work faced rides of 90 minutes or more.

With growing evidence that essential employees like teachers and police officers are having trouble living in the cities they serve, lawmakers in some states with fast-climbing rents have introduced bills this year to encourage more affordable worker housing. Massachusetts, for instance, is considering a bill that would allow Nantucket to charge a fee on home sales to help pay for affordable housing.

Massachusetts, along with New York, Washington state and California, where similar legislation to encourage more workforce housing is also pending, experienced higher than average median rent increases between 2010 and 2015, along with some of the biggest growth in super commutes.

For instance, Massachusetts saw median rent rise 15 per cent in the five-year period, according to census data, while the number of super commuters rose 45 per cent.

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But even higher earners with new jobs in today’s recovering economy may be unwilling to move closer to jobs, especially in highly competitive housing markets where prices are rising quickly, Moss said.

“The long-term effect of the 2008 financial crisis is a reluctance to move because people don’t know if the economy is going to collapse again,” Moss said.