Ever since I heard that President Obama by Presidential order granted Federal Employees a minimum wage of $10.75 an hour I have been pissed. I am pissed that he and his cronies believe they can pressure the Congress into passing a similar minimum wage bill for private employees by such a stupid move. It's stupid because everyone knows their are so few minimum wage jobs in the Federal Government that it was a nothing action. Its only purpose was to start an outcry by the uneducated masses to put pressure on Congress to act in a way that would be very bad for this country.
Why is a minimum wage of $10.75 an hour bad for this country?
Answer : higher cost equals higher prices, and that's inflation, period. Sorry, money doesn't just fall out of the sky.
And, guess what, truckers are not covered by the minimum wage law.
In fact our wages have been the most depressed wages of any industry. Twenty years ago when I started driving truck I was making 28 cents per mile, today I am making 28 cents per mile plus 7 cents per mile per diem which means I am taking home more actual money but 7 cents per mile of that is subsidized by all of the rest of you tax payers. Now here is the real rub, 20 years ago the average cost of a house was $113,000 today it is $311,400 and that kind of inflation holds true for everything from cigarettes, to food, to cars, to; well you name it, you get the picture.
Last year I made about $40,000. That means I drove 114,285 miles at an average speed of approximately 55 mph. That means I spent 2,077 hours behind the wheel at an average of $19.25 per hour.
Sounds pretty good to the guy or gal flipping burgers at Mcdonalds right? Twice the wage they are making, but if I got this figured right I spent 259 days on the road. Now that means there was 4144 hours I was not paid for but had to remain at work and because I eat and sleep at my work place and since I am responsible for that load even while not performing my job, meaning driving, that means the real hours at work was 6, 221. Divide that into $40,000 and the real wage is $6.42 per hour. Minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour, hmmmm.
But it gets even worse; since the FMCSA didn't take the forethought to require resets be done at the driver's home, I spent at least another 15 periods of 34 hours parked somewhere other than home, and was still responsible for my employer's truck and trailer, and still not getting paid. This now gives us a total of 6,731 hours at work for a real wage of $5.95 per hour.
And I havn't even added up the extra cost of living in a truck and having a wife and kids; it's like having two separate homes. Nor have I deducted the payroll taxes which amount to around 35%.
So you still think you want to be a truck driver and earn those big bucks the school recruiters promise??? Better buy my book and find out about the other drawbacks to this lifestyle, you can get it by clicking HERE.
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