how do pay scales work

Im confused as to your question...what company are you asking about? Most companies start at different pay per mile and most raise pay on different intervals...

 

A penny per mile here and there at x amount of time that is laid out in orientation and handbooks.

 

Your question is specific to a certain company. Leave it in that thread. That company has a scale from 1-10. But that's not all companies. It'll be easier to leave it in that thread.


Ed

 

Most companies start a driver out based on their experience. A new driver starts at the bottom pay rate, an experienced driver starts at a higher rate. Normally, the raises come with either years of service with the company or miles driven. But not always. Most companies have a maximum pay rate limit. At Crete you had to turn 121,000/yr to get a raise, and when I was there the max was .47/mile. I hit the max after 5 years, so my last 5 years, I never saw another raise. Not all companies do it that way. At Poly Trucking, everyone makes the same rate. The driver who just hired on makes the same as the driver who's been there 20 years. And when raises come along, everyone gets them regardless of years/miles served.

 

Ive got about 30 years under a CDL in my life time. When I consider the question of Pay in the early 80's it was 25% what the truck made for the workweek or about 21 cents a mile give or take a few cents. For a totally newbie who knows nothing and need training, I do not get top pay that I did towards 2001. When I stopped over the road in 2001, my pay was very close to 50 cents a mile and with tax deductions itemized regarding Perdiem at 45 dollars a day times however hundreds of days you spend away from home, it's literally a extra 14,000 dollars in write offs against say.. 67K gross in 2001 that wife and I made together as a team.

As I progessed in experience and certain opportunities my pay by miles improved steadly. 21, to 25 then 32 for a long time it was not until about the late 90's where I started to get into the high 30's and lower 40's in trucking pay.

At the same time, reducing expenses on the truckstop and doing everything inside the cab with the wife, cooking, brewing coffee (A pound of Coffee folgers is around .16 cents a cup versus say 1.50 a cup on the truckstop menu.

There was a 120 volt mr coffee behind my drivers seat in our 2001 Freightliner century under the desk closet that was driven by a 3000 watt inverter installed by Freightliner with company approval. That one time cost of a few hundred dollars in total made sure that I did not pay 1.50 for truckstop coffee anymore. Its a small expense but adds up big time when you are out there 300 plus days. Quitting smoking was another financial windfall for us, Carton of malboro in Kings Mountain for example in SC/NC tobacco dealer there was around 30 bucks at that time. Now it's like what? 70 dollars a carton which last about two cartons a week? that's 150 dollars you don't have to endure each week paying for a habit that will eventually try to hurt you.

Inflation has had a big impact on pay. 48 cents a mile worked out to 67K gross, throwing in Perdiem as I talked about was around 13,700 extra dollars gained by 306 some odd days away from home on the logbooks which has to be kept 7 years retaining against a IRS audit for that kind of itemized deduction and a huge profit against the gross that I would have otherwise paid.

I forget exactly what my tax bill was in 2001 without the deductions it stood at close to roughly 28% or so of my total gross pay and that of the wife. Everything went to the house in those days and being a team was a very powerful and profitable way to break and bypass the limitations of the hours of service in those days WITHOUT using more than one logbook for each of us. Everything that last year for us was totally and stone cold legal.

It is necessary to be very careful who you hire on, some companies take the perdiem due you and write off the taxes for themselves. You really should be careful to consider how many days you have been out at tax time each year. I made 67K with the wife in 2001 more or less a couple thousand and perdiem deduction that year was around 13800 against tax of around 6900 due when the forums finally got filed that year. Arkansas was a tax as well.

I hope this thought from my experiences with trucking pay versus the effects of inflation since the 80's into close to 2020 now I see that 50 cents is considered a starting pay for teams with experience.

I am not caught up on what a single driver with experience, call it 5 years verifable over the road experience but it should be a couple thousand dollars sign on cash after a period of time in your first year and your careful use of Perdiem against your taxes each year which I think is 60 dollars a day this year versus 45 dollars back in 2001.

I don't know the particulars of your postion or other motvation to ask the question about pay. I hope that this post helps you answer the question strictly talking about pay.

I have always without fail in the remaining years on the road to take a extra withholding each pay week to around 100 dollars for uncle sam and around 75 dollars for the state over and beyond standard deductions on the pay slip. I don't make any interest on that sum of money when a whole trucking years worth of work approx 306 days for us worked out well enough to make sure there is no tax from Arkansas and none from Uncle Sam because it all has been settled nicely.

The sum of 13800 went into the 2002 year as liquid cash savings for the new work year in trucking When the towers were destroyed, the payroll people company that handled our pay was themselves destroyed and the money was there to provide us a period of about 8 weeks being able to work and truck without borrowing against my pay due to comcheck. It's the best way to solve problems of that magnitude with savings adequate over and beyond what is normally expenses out there on the big road.

Be safe out there.

 

Some companies have what they call a sliding pay scale.I think Swift has it.If you run good miles you'll get cents per mile but if you have a load less then 100 miles you'll receive a certain amount.I think Werner has the same thing.

 

Then there's trip distance sliding scale. At some places, for example, a 200 mile trip may pay 50 cpm. While a 2,000 mile trip may pay 40 cpm. With many breaks in between.

And it's anyone's guess where the median average trip length is and the average monthly miles is because you probably won't get accurate numbers from the company.

Why do they do this? Several reasons but I'm convinced this is part of the larger equation used at most carriers to "keep drivers hungry and motivated". They can't have a driver making too much money, too easily or production numbers (output) will suffer.

 

The biggest problem I saw in trucking as a industry is lack of salary. A Air line commercial ATP pilot hauling 400 souls around the world several times a work week similar to what we do running coast to coast with all kinds of hauls can count on a salary approaching 150K or more a year with experience. Absolute solid salary with very little financial fluctiuations, the plane could have 4 souls or 400 plus it matters not, the question of pay is set.

Trucking is a feast and famine. Ive always advocated large amounts of savings because when the Nation suddenly .. say crashed in Paper products on the market commodity in Chicago it directly impacted my flatbed paper, wood and other similar products for a few weeks and mileage declined to less than 1000 per week at .23 It was literally famine wages. It did not cover the taxes much and did not provide for much more than one bowl of chili per day and water. It was a few weeks before the freight picked up again in our company that year. Savings carried us through, Some drivers quit and were forced out because they had borrowed on comchecks against payroll that was negative charged against them and growing in owing the company.

We are a trucking company not a bank, you owe 1100 dollars and they will take it out of your check until a few weeks later you make enough net to pay them off. I quit a few companies because of 0.00 paychecks and a balance due of 300 some odd dollars in the bad old days.

Later on in 2001, FFE issued 0.00 paychecks manually because the interchange papers did not go through in time and brokers did not pay FFE for the loads we ran each week as a team and eventually we got paid. Eventually. But I understand that now it's all computerized so that when you pick up a load on your 5th wheel your qualcomm beeps with the direct deposit minus taxes for that specific run, how much of that cash do you want? much easier to run like a business even though we were company drivers in them days.

As a FFE trainer I had a salary almost 12 weeks of around 1500 net, and it was the very best of times because we no longer cared if we ran 20 miles or 8000 miles that given week or any week. We ran or sat. No worries, no complains no stress. Salary done. I know the rig grossed approximately 350K that year in revenue so paying 67K gross to two drivers was not a problem in the end for FFE.

I advocate a salary for drivers. That way if you spend it all on the way to LA at the Sky City casino and have to go hungry it's your own fault.

The constant feast and famine for miles simply must stop. Office personel, officers and safety inside a trucking office are paid salary. Do the same for drivers. It's all I ask.

Owner Operators are literally a company onto themselves. Their 1099, obligations to insurance protections etc are much higher and more convulted than any normal company driver will ever worry about.