Freight bills from 1978

That last invoice from Joliet, IL to Irving, TX. Did that pay 3.90 per mile for 879 miles?

 

Using powerhousescott's figure of $0.648 per mile, adjusted for inflation from 1977 to 2015, it is $2.54.

If that $0.648 was in 1978, adjusted for inflation in 2015, it is $2.37 per mile.

 

dang ! you are old.

In general looks like about 1/2 what they want to pay for loads today. When you consider other things like houses, cars, trucks, cigarrettes, beef, etc... have gone up 10X or more seems like pretty good money to me.

 

I remember when diesel was still .50 per gallon in the 80's and then jumped to .70 per gallon, stayed there for quite a while. Then all the diesel cars started coming out and it jumped to .90 - $1 per gallon and has continued to rise ever since. Recently is the first time in a long time that I have actually seen diesel cheaper than gasoline. This last weekend my wife and I put diesel in her Jetta in St Louis. We paid $2.29 per gallon the gasoline was $2.65 per gallon. I think that was mainly due to the 4th traffic pricing.

 

You are right on track

 

The carrier he was leased to was averaging .926 per mile
he was making 70% of that .648 per mile to his truck.

Adjusting for inflation 1978 - 2015

Carrier Rate per mile: $3.38
Owner Operator rate per mile: $2.36 (70%)

For those that want to play with the adjustments:

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

This is why I wonder and keep asking guys why are you believing the shipper/broker when the tell you that $1.50 per mile is a good paying load. Why do you believe them when they tell you that $2.00 per mile is a good load.

Now I realize that these were flatbed loads, and a couple of oversized loads. But if you took a look at what they are offering the spot market rate right now for those same type of loads.

Flatbed: $2.09
Heavy Haul / Oversize: $2.29 (not including permits)

If you look at Old Man's BOL's you will notice that the permits were paid for by the shipper, with the exception of the Thunderbird load. I am pretty sure that he will vouch that the Thunderbird loads always sucked in the old days.

If we were to take the Dry Van rate that I was paying as the shipper in 1996. $1.74 per mile all miles round trip.
Adjust for inflation:

Carrier rate: $2.64 per mile
O/O rate: $1.84 per mile (70%)

Now can the rest of you see why I was so thankful to Old Man for this information. I have notebooks of study's that I have done over the past eight years from interviewing the old school operators. This is the first time that anybody actually had the proof to validate what the real truckers were saying. I threw out the garbage from those guys that tried and blow smoke up my hiney, when they told me they made $2 - $4 per mile back in the 70's. Most guys told me they were making between .50 - .75 cpm, sometimes a real good load paid $1 per mile.

 

the " I don't haul for less than 2.00 a mile" crowd was the " if I can get a 1.00 a mile , I got it made " crowd back then