What happened to wages in the industry?

I do round trip DFW to LA to DFW every week for over 100k. The jobs are out there.

 

I believe, it depends what state you worked in the 80'. For instance in the early 2000, a police officer here in Utah was making between 30k-40k yearly. In Los Angeles, at the same time, a Police Officer was making 20k or more yearly than an officer in Utah.

 

LTL is well over $100,000 as well and home daily

 

Yep. And guess what LTL has that OTR truckload does not have? That's right, unions.

Old Dominion, Estes, Saia, etc HAVE to pay good money. Because if they don't, they won't be able to keep drivers because the union LTL's of ABF and T Force pay their drivers top dollar with great health benefits.

I guarantee if ABF and T Force were to go out of business, with no more LTL unions existing than LTL pay would go down over the coming 10-20 years, just like OTR truckload did.

LTL still pays good because LTL still has 2 huge unions left.

 

No. This is 100% wrong. 99% of LTL linehaul drivers aren't doing most of the things you just listed and are still paid great money. And pulling doubles is literally just a couple extra steps different than pulling 53 footers, so don't tell me it's highly more skilled to pull doubles than a single 53 footer. Yet LTL linehaul still gets paid.

This is a bad attitude that thankfully has gone away with anybody under the age of 45. The people who make sure your supermarkets are stocked and living out of a truck working 70 hour weeks do not deserve to be making the equivalent of $15-$20 per hour without overtime in 2025.

"Find a better job."

That's what you and others were probably about to reply with to my post, right?

Yeah, a quick google search shows the average age of truckers is late 40's. It looks like they took all of this forums advice and did find better jobs. I tried bringing this up in a different thread about the appalling work conditions and pay of OTR trucking and nobody in that thread saw a problem with it.

Guess the gen x'ers are going to need more immigrants if you all want food to the nursing homes since none of you want to improve OTR pay and working conditions for the younger generation of Americans. Oh well, your choice.

 

OP, you don't even have to look at 1980's wages. OTR Trucking wages are garbage. Low $20's for local class A and class B CDL jobs. Amazon DSP's, which require only a normal drivers license, are paying around $19.50 - $21.50 per hour, 4 days a week, with OT not hard to come by. That is insane that CDL jobs are only paying $1-$2 more than an Amazon DSP van job with no CDL required. A lot of Warehouse workers make more than OTR drivers now.

Whatever city or town you are in, go look at what jobs are available and you'll see the garbage pay and work schedules, oh and of course no OT in half of them either.

The only reason OTR truckers are making 60k - 75k per year is because they take 4 days off per month and work 70 hour work weeks. You can replicate this at home with a job in the high teens/low 20's per hour for 40 hours a week and then a part time job for 15-20 hours a week.

To answer your question, why has trucking pay plummeted?

Too many reasons to list. It's embarrassing how this country treats and pays OTR drivers. I don't know the solution but I do know people under the age of 45 aren't going to slave away for publicly traded companies paying them pennies per mile.

 

Until there is an actual shortage of people willing to do the work then conditions and pay won’t improve. OTR will always be used as a stepping stone to something else because it’s the easiest thing to do when you get a CDL and need to get experience. The OTR companies say they care about driver retention but they don’t. They’ve had the same business model for years.

 

Ok

 

Guess the average person at TTR hasn’t figured out the meaning of AVERAGE. LTL drivers are not average. The AVERAGE driver of 1980 was much more complete, more competent, more professional than the average driver of 2025. LTL drivers are uniformed and the average LTL driver is not 100lbs overweight. LTL drivers can still use their mirrors, can still trip plan, still understands that trucking is a performance based industry. Apparently, LTL drivers are better than average, and the pay shows it.

Are you average? Does the AVERAGE driver in 2025 cry about the appalling state of trucking today? Seems to be your whole reason for posting. If the average driver does what you do, then you are average. If he doesn’t, you are less than average. I have said for years, no matter the company, mega carrier or small company, the top drivers make 1.5-2X average. Call Swift or USX, even England. Call them, and ask what does the average driver make then ask what the top driver makes. Same rules, same playing field.same HOS. Even at a mega.
If you are average or less, better your game first. Then talk about how bad everything is in the industry.





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Nope, this is completely wrong. I worked LTL before, both P&D and linehaul. Fat drivers were extremely common in linehaul, I didn't see much difference between the physical shape of linehaul drivers and OTR drivers. A bunch were slobs too, that was a common and key gripe at Estes with slip seating trucks because you would get a truck that was trashed by a previous linehaul driver.

The P&D guys were on average not as fat as the linehaul drivers, but on average were pigs when it came to cleanliness and no different than the dirty OTR and linehaul truckers.

You have made this statement before that LTL drivers are above average, I can tell you that linehaul drivers are not any different than OTR truckload drivers. We didn't do repairs at Estes beyond super basic stuff like replace a glad hand seal. We didn't wear uniforms either, uniforms were not enforced.

You say LTL drivers can trip plan, what trip planning? OTR drivers do WAY more trip planning than linehaul guys. Linehaul guys go to the same spots everyday and if they are extra board, they STILL go to the same spots everywhere around the country because they're only going terminal to terminal. OTR drivers do way more trip planning than linehaul drivers and most OTR drivers rarely go to the same locations more than once.

Not to mention OTR drivers are always running up against their 70 and have to manage their 70 clocks, which linehaul drivers don't do. OTR guys also have to trip plan for parking at the end of each shift, trip plan showers, trip plan grocery shopping, etc etc. all of which linehaul drivers do not have to worry about. So that is a clearly false statement by you that LTL linehaul guys are trip planning more than OTR truckload drivers.

So you saying LTL drivers are better than average, I can tell you as someone who did both linehaul and P&D at Estes and also did OTR, that LTL drivers are not any better than OTR drivers. As I stated the only reasons LTL companies pay more money than OTR truckload is because of the ABF and T Force unions, which forces the non union LTL's to pay good. Guaranteed the minute there's no more unions in LTL, it's a race to the bottom just like with truckload OTR.