How Truck Driving Became One Of The WORST Jobs In The US | RISKY Business | Business Insider

How did truck driving go from one of America's best blue-collar jobs to one of its toughest? This video follows the job decade by decade, through the laws and decisions that shaped it. It starts with the 1935 Motor Carrier Act and the overtime exemption of 1938, then covers the deregulation of July 1, 1980, the revolving door of driver turnover, the 2017 electronic logging mandate, and the billions of dollars drivers lose to unpaid waiting at the dock. In this video: How the Interstate Commerce Commission controlled trucking for 45 years, and why that kept driver pay high Why truck drivers were left out of overtime protection in 1938, and why that still matters today What the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 changed, and what it did to the Teamsters The pay debate: Michael Belzer's "as much as 50%" against the free-market estimate of more than 10% Driver turnover at large truckload carriers above 100% a year, and what that really means The ELD mandate and the 90% turnover spike of 2017 Detention time: the DOT Inspector General's estimate of $1.1 to $1.3 billion a year in lost driver earnings, and the link to crash risk What a median trucker's pay works out to per hour on a 55-hour week What would fix it: overtime repeal, fair detention pay, and an end to the revolving door CHAPTERS 0:00 July 1, 1980 1:10 What this video will prove 1:37 The 1930s: a closed market 2:43 1938: the overtime exemption 3:21 The golden era and the Teamsters 4:12 The case against regulation 5:02 The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 6:46 How much did pay fall? 8:23 The revolving door 10:12 2017: the ELD mandate 11:48 Detention: the hidden cost 13:44 The pandemic years 14:35 What the job pays today 16:23 What would actually fix it 18:43 What it means for you 19:41 Close SOURCES Motor Carrier Act of 1935, Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, Motor Carrier Act of 1980 and ICC Termination Act of 1995 Library of Economics and Liberty (Econlib): "Trucking Deregulation" Encyclopedia.com: Motor Carrier Act history FTC submission on trucking deregulation in the United States (employment and union data) Vanderbilt Law Review: valuation of ICC operating rights in 1980 FreightWaves reporting on Teamsters layoffs, Michael Belzer's research and the overtime exemption American Trucking Associations: driver turnover reports, 2007 and 2017 FMCSA: 2014 detention time study and detention research U.S. DOT Office of Inspector General, 2018 report on detention time OOIDA and OOIDA Foundation: detention time research and Guaranteeing Overtime for Truckers Act materials U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers, May 2024 Business Insider documentary "How Truck Driving Became One Of The Worst Jobs In The US", for owner-operator figures and port queue footage Hourly-rate examples are my own illustrative calculations from the published median, shown so you can check them. Owner-operator cost figures come from one driver's account in the documentary and are not industry averages. Pay estimates from different economists are presented as competing views. DISCLAIMER This video is general, industry-wide analysis and commentary for educational purposes only. It is not legal, financial, employment or business advice, and it should not be relied on for decisions about your own job, contracts, pay or compliance with hours-of-service rules. Laws, regulations and pending legislation can change. References to named organizations are based on publicly available information and are not allegations of wrongdoing. If you're making decisions about employment, contracts or business finances, speak to a qualified professional. If this helped you understand how the job got here, a like helps it reach the next person wondering the same thing. Subscribe for the next video, where I'll run the numbers on the Guaranteeing Overtime for Truckers Act and what it would mean for drivers, carriers and the price of what we buy. I'm Dwight Givens. Follow the lorry. #Trucking #TruckDrivers #Truckers #TruckingIndustry #CDL