By Kim Kalunian, WPRO News
A new report from the US Census found that 75,143 Rhode Islanders worked in a different state, or 15.6 percent in 2011. This exceeds the number of people who lived elsewhere but commute to Rhode Island for work: 59,696 or 12.8 percent.
Rhode Island had the fifth highest percentage of workers that leave their state of residence to work elsewhere, and was beat out by only the District of Columbia (25%), Maryland (18%), New Hampshire (17%) and Delaware (16%).
The District of Columbia makes up for the people they lose by the people they gain: a whopping 72 percent of Washington D.C. workers live elsewhere.
Rhode Island was also among five states (other than D.C.) where one in ten workers commuted from a different state to work there. These included Delaware, New Hampshire, West Virginia and North Dakota.
The study also found that 5.9 percent of Rhode Islanders, roughly 28,500, commuted 60 minutes or more to their jobs. About 22,600 people living in a different state commute more than 60 minutes to get to their Rhode Island-based jobs.
The study showed that only 8.1 percent of the nation’s workforce have commutes of at least 60 minutes , with 600,000 American workers having “mega commutes” of 90 minutes or more.
The data also showed that the number of workers that work from home at least one day a week has increased by 35 percent (4 million people) in the last decade.
The data comes from the Census’ 2011 American Community Survey.
