DRIVER WAGES BACK IN THE DAY

Aug1988 New team driver.... was it better?
.19cpm split in a 1985 International 9670 COE single bunk, spring ride, manuel steering, 9 spd 300HP, No A/C...though a cab fan and bunk fan. I want to say the WB was 156"....
We avg'd 5000 miles a week.... so I grossed ~$450 to ~$500 a week... Big money compared to what USMC paid....

Maybe in today's $$ the pay was better????, or Cost of living was lower???... but damage to a drivers body was horrible. Bobtailing made us urinate blood....

Trucks today are palaces.... as far as comfort.... crappy as far as dependability....

I don't recall breaking down back than....

 

Its not as easy or cost-effective to do. You have to bring them here, deal with the government, and pay all the fines and pay other people to do the paperwork. With programming, you can just contact a company in India, tell them what you need, and receive your code or 1 or 2 years later without having to worry about it at all after that.

 

Ummm...look around....them is already here...

 

You miss the point I am trying to make. Them is here, yes. But other businesses that can be transmitted over the internet like code can is outsourced for more and more easily, and cheap.

I can tell you from experience companies would rather hire Americans and pay them more. But if there aren't available qualified labor then they'll look overseas. It's not that companies are just outsourcing because the are being cheap and greedy. It's that there is so much business and work that people want done, that there isn't the man power here to get it all done. That's just how it is. People resist good news, but that's how it is. It's a good thing. It's bringing underdeveloped countries into the fold. It's exposing them to prosperity and as a result lowers overall risk of conflict.

 

Depends where on the east coast. Not to mention cost of living was a lot cheaper back then also. Nowadays...the east is very expensive again, depends on where your at. Location! Location! Location! lol. An example...Northern Va area. Very expensive. NYC is also very expensive. DC is in parts. The parts it's low though have a super duper crime rate.

LOL. It's a lot more rare then it's made out to be to make the super big bucks. Maybe back in the day, pre 2000. Nowadays? Depends on your niche really. Anyone can build or repair a home pc/laptop. An you can learn a lot like building websites from online or books. Far more common these days for folks to be willing to actually fix their own ####. Back in the day this wasn't the case. The majority of people couldn't tell a ram stick from a vacuum tube.

Again...I lol. I also wish this was true. Again it was back in the day when it was rare for the average idiot to code. Now...everyone can code. From the computer nerd to the 12 year old making his own "mod" program to cheat/goof off with in a game like GTA V:Online.

That whole "Coders make bank" thing is a baloney. The majority don't rake in the big bucks. Some do, but most don't in my experiences. Kinda like truckers...not everyone makes big bucks. Some do, some don't. Depends on your niche in either occupation. I can code in a couple of languages. Self taught no less. Turns out...I hate math. An had no love for 1s and 0s nor to start at thousands of lines of code over an over each and every day.

It's a good gig computers, but it's not the money maker everyone seems to think it is. Competition is thick in the majority of places, and technology changes so fast it's not even funny. Plus the stuff today is a lot cheaper an more prone to be thrown away vs fixed like back in the day.

An not laughing at you...just the misconceptions in regards to computers and money.

Sirscrapntruckalot - If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all.

 

That's exactly correct. You hit it spot on. In the past, computers was a great opportunity. But now everyone can do it. So economics dictates the value of someone that can speak computers goes down with the number of people that speak it. I get on my computer games and play with people half my age and know as much as me if not more. And I spent 10 years of my life immersed in that ####.

I make as much as them and their college degrees just because I am willing to live on the road where most can't imagine doing that. The grass isn't greener on the other side in technology, not any more. That can be my one contribution I make to this community in exchange for everything else it has taught me. There are a lot of people struggling in other fields that had to spend more time and money to earn the same amount if not less. Its not just what you know either. There's people skills and politics that come into play that truck drivers don't seem to have to worry about as much. Maybe a little bit, but not nearly as much as someone that has to sit in an office and worry about what the guy next to him think about him and whether or not he'll support your next idea. It's just madness. A truck driver just has to drive, and get somewhere on time and safely.

 

Its amazing what we've done here. There's so much work and stuff that needs to be hauled, even with everyone being fluent in computers, there's still more work than the manpower to meet it. And as a result, people consuming so much, not enough drivers to keep up either. Taking a break to cook something from my games becomes a chore. I don't have to worry about what Im going to cook, only that I am interrupting my entertainment. How can I think humanity is failing or tending downward. Most of it has was thanks to hard work from older generations who sacrificed

Im getting carried away. Sorry if that's corny or you don't care. I know a lot of you older guys read here. This pajama-wearing degenerate appreciates you.

 

Yes. Some of my first OTR work was in the mid 20's In the 80's gasoline was about .90 a gallon. Milk maybe .60 In the late 60's gas was .28 and milk .20 You could get into vocational trade in high school and essentially go work in a industry somewhere local, baltimore harbor was surrounded by high dollar jobs ranging from a pepsi bottler to the shipyards where anything is possible. Carplant, aircraft building and so on. We had it all. All you have to do is show up and be on time. Making 40,000 a year. Houses were 19000 and cars with V8 and airconditioning were around 3500 american made too. Japanese cars didnt come in until about 1972, we bought a datsun at 2000 dollars which carried us over the fuel embargo days on a 10 gallon tank for 5.00 instead of the big impala with the 25 gallon tank for god knows how much.

Full meals in the truckstop was 4.50 to 6.00 then. Coffee maybe .60 and bottomless.

What you bought in food would feed you a week on 20. And not want for anything. Bacon was about 1.80 Everything is now about a hundred dollars for the same limited list of food for one week with bacon almost 9.00 and milk approaching 3.00 with gas the same. Katrina created 4.50 gas for a while. I have not filled my tahoe in three years now. I run the thing about town once every 9 to 12 weeks for a few miles for medicine or shop. It only has been driven about 8 times this year. I have a driver and car and probably put about 500 dollars to 1000 so far into it for gasoline and paying driver more than uber rates for her time as well as new tires and such when I needed to this year was more expensive than most previous years. Another tire will need to be put on in two weeks. (Another 120..)

Used to buy a set of 4 premium performance tires equal to the state police in size, traction and so on for 400 in the 80's now it's a cool 1200 dollars and partly because it's a large truck. you need bigger tires unfortunately a set of hankooks being a better quality for weight rating and traction than the crappy good years with imports cost more. I remember my pa buying a set of 135 over 70 by 15 coopers for the maverick one time for 110 dollars in the 80's there was not enough tire to be safe in the rain. Car broke traction twice sliding across the roadway in the rain. That is why I go the other way, bigger than factory stock and never lost it again.

Truck tires were 200 back then. I bought a few out of my pay when I damaged them in those days there was plenty left over on a 600 dollar net pay.

Today you almost need to minimum twice that to stay above water in this economy and inflation. If you look at what I made in the 80's grossing 20K or more I needed to gross 70K in 2001 to stay even. As in breaking even with the same standard of living in food, gasoline etc. (With house and lands paid off and cars paid off. We still paid thousands, mostly in insurance across several areas and knew back in Maryland everything was even more expensive such as the property tax on the old home which would run about 7000 annually. We only paid 350 here in Arkansas on everything on homestead. It would have been half that on my deafness legally if I claimed it. (And frozen at that level for life) In maryland you paid about 150 a year in fees for tags. Here in the south only 29 dollars a year and nothing for emissions, inspections and so on. We have none of that.

Our house and few acres came out to about 35000 retail from the 80's my pa paid 77000 or so for his home now valued around 300000 plus. If I inherited that house on his death, I would auction it that week. There is no keeping it. Not with the property tax almost as much as I take in a year on disability that is pernament.

In medical terms if you got cut bad and needed stitches, it's a few hours done and 100 dollars. Now it's thousands. ER visits became a 8000 dollar problem in 4 hours if you had a stomach owie like I did. 2000 of that was for two mathematicians to run the lab results in Dallas of all places where they sent some 30 samples of my blood at up to 300 per draw. The hosptial tore up the bill and made it go away on charity otherwise I'll still be paying on it 4 years later.

Medical expenses in retail ia about 34000 so far this year, we deferred another 30,000 in undone work that needs to be done sometime in the future. Probably more as the body degrades. There is no point in worrying about it. In trucking I only accumulated about roughly 4000 total in er visits from 1985 to 2005. That's it. Everything took off and got silly expensive when Obamacare got passed. My insurance for Part C hearing aids in 2019 has been adjusted to 2000 dollars copay each for hearing aids for example. Essentially passing the cost onto me. The aids will be around 5000 to 6000 for the pair. In 1984 they were 1400 for the pair of non digital computer aids of a less capable form factor. I actually run on walmart hearing aids now for 20 dollars each. The range o hearing boost provided by them matches my existing hearing with some exceptions in the low range. They have literally become disposible using 1970's era formfactor and rechargeable battery technology which isnt that bad, but I have not learned it's limits for a variety of reasons. will they pass a DOT test? Maybe. I think so. (The audiology chart test, not the whisper)

I made allowances for cost of living by emigrating from the overpriced BS states in the east to the deep south where it's possible to pick up a home for very little and spend a dollar fixing it over time. We literally have passed new codes this year that require certain modern stuff that WILL drive up the cost of new homes from 110K to the low to mid 200's when they are built. There are still some fine 110K new builds for sale in the highway 64 valley for now. That will change as the years go by and land values go up due to town expansion with more people coming in and so on. They will probably become 300,000 homes on resale 20 years from now.

 

Oddity now. Gas is $3 just bought milk at Wally the other day for $1.47.
Something seems severely off price or heavily subsidized.

 

HE is an industry leader in pay, and drivers are beating the door down to get a position there.