20 years ago this week

Driver wages have not kept up with the cost of living, we were better off in the 70's than we are today.

 

Nope your not the only one!. Cost of living thru the roof and wages thru the basement!

 

Yes, but did you run 12-15 hours/day 75 MPH, week in and week out like some of us did? I'm not saying it's "easier" now with less time rolling down the road, I'm just asking a question.

 

Same thing happened to construction wages too....

 

took me 7 years as a dump truck to make a good wage. then the recession hit. it's taken me 7 years to get back up to where i was.

after all the years i've been working. i've come to realize that my wages basically depend on the economy. like most of this world.

in my next life. i'm going to be a lawyer or a doctor. people always get sick or are sueing

 

That really doesn't even make sense because we all have good weeks and bad weeks. How do you know what kind of week you had, and as Texan said you probably was running 2 log books to get that gross. So yes pay has dropped if you went from running out law to running somewhat legal, but I'm sure you are more rested, and you don't burn out as fast.

 

Exactly. My best decade was the 80s. Mine started to decline in the 90s, then the 2000s I actually worked harder and it still declined.

 

The cost of living shouldnt have anything to do with your gross. How about what you made for 1994 vs. 2013 to put things into better perspective. I would agree drivers wages are not where they should be by any means but to be making less than you were 20 years ago? May be time to job hunt. Although I do know some guys who were union car haulers who were killing it in the 80s and early 90s.

 

I never have been in the union and I made more money running local in the 80s than Ive made any decade since then and I started running the road (48 state) in the 90s. Actually made pretty good running the road in the 70s, even though there weren't a lot of interstates in the first part of the 70s