What is an acceptable rate (cpm) for a New Driver?

One of the things that drives wages down is that new employees have no idea what their efforts are worth. The first fulltime job in trucking that I had was 10 years ago. The company was Keystone Automotive Operations and it paid 45 cents per mile. It was a Kansas City to Houston team run two runs one week and three the next. I am seeing on here folks that are working for 30 cents a mile.

Why are people willing to do this job so cheaply? I believe $1000 per week should be the minimum that anyone will do this job for.

The last cpm company I worked for was K and B. The pay rate there was 48 cpm.

 

I get 38 cpm for two years experience. I get an extra 10 cpm for the North East.

 

The company I work for just voted to strike, today, so I've been thinking a lot about this topic.

 

Probably a fair bit more than it currently is in the industry.

 

Deregualtion destroyed the trucking industry and it has been a race to the bottom since then.

 

A shipper I was at today is also a trucking company, and the main load-finder-guy was on the phone with one of their customers, looking for freight. He (the guy on the phone) had a load going to Illinois and another going to Indiana (from Winnipeg, MB). The IL load was paying 78 cpm and the IN was 83 cpm.

They don't take anything for less than $1.10 per mile. It's becoming a joke these days.

 

I think a lot has to do with the economy and job market being so bad. People are looking for any job they can get. My dad used to tell me his depression era stories when he worked in a mine for 50 cents an hour and refused to quit because their were 100 men waiting in line for your job.

 

It's just bad economy there are too many trucks and not enough loads it really drives rates down why pay someone 2 dollars a mile when they can get someone to do it for 90 cents a mile everyone is in survival mode right now

 

I'm not a driver yet so take what i say with a grain of salt it's just an opinion...

I get what you are saying but I don't think it's about getting the lowest cpm driver to haul the freight. Usually the drivers earning low cpm are the newbs or have little experience. I would think hauling high dollar critical freight is worth paying more for to have an experienced driver get it there on time and safely. The newbies have a higher risk of being late or getting into accidents.

 

It's been like this since I got started driving 8 years ago Companies have been posting multi million dollar profit quarters and the driver pay has stayed the same. They don't care about any one of us.