I absolutely think employee's would try to game it if companies paid out commute time. Some companies do pay out travel time, which is a similar concept. I thin

I absolutely think employee's would try to game it if companies paid out commute time. Some companies do pay out travel time, which is a similar concept. I think you just have to accept some amount of gaming, that's life. On the employee side, the solution is to ALWAYS factor in your commute time. A job that pays 20,000 dollars more a year can easily not be worth it if the commute is insane. If you have to double your rent to make it work, it's probably not worth it. I factor in commute like I factor in other benefits, like health insurance and PTO. My salary can't necessarily replace those, so they implicitly have a higher value than money alone. It would take a really nice salary to override them. And I think that's why we see absurd salaries in places like Seattle. They know employee's are doing this calculus, they can't afford to pay 100,000 like you can in, say, Texas.