Big rig hauling cherries overturns on Fresno highway

Since Day 1, the Biden-Harris Administration has taken on the supply chain disruptions and price increases resulting from the decades-long lack of investment in the nation’s goods movement supply chain. The Administration enacted the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to bring our infrastructure to the 21st century, worked with ports to clear the docks and gets good moving, launched a pilot initiative to create the digital infrastructure to connect key stakeholders in the supply chain, and more. The result is a modern goods movement system that boosts American competitiveness and cuts families’ costs.

Trucking moves 72 percent of goods in America and is a lynchpin in our goods movement supply chain. Trucking costs grew more than 20 percent last year as a surge in demand for goods caused by the pandemic confronted a decline in trucking employment that preceded the pandemic. The low supply of drivers is driven by high turnover and low job quality. Turnover in trucking routinely averages 90 percent for some carriers and drivers spend about 40 percent of their workday waiting to load and unload goods – hours that are typically unpaid. Many truckers are not directly employed and operate as independent small businesses, bearing the burden of leasing, gas, insurance, and maintenance costs themselves. These financial burdens cause many to leave the profession. Trucking also draws on an older, heavily male workforce—the median age is four years higher than the overall workforce and almost 90 percent of the industry is men—which adds to its recruiting challenges.

Last December, the Administration confronted these challenges head on. The U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Labor launched a Trucking Action Plan to increase the supply of truck drivers by creating new pathways into the profession, cutting red tape to expand high quality training through Registered Apprenticeship, and laying the foundation for improving job quality to keep people in the profession.

Major Achievements of Biden Effort to Expand and Improve Trucking Jobs:

Getting Americans Working in Better Trucking Jobs: Since President Biden took office, we have seen historic increases in trucking employment with 2021 registering as the best year for trucking employment growth since 1994 and December 2021-February 2022 as the best three-month stretch for long distance truck hiring since the 1990s. And frontline truckers’ real wages grew this year despite elevated inflation.
Helping connect veterans to trucking careers: The trucking industry partnered with leading Veterans Service Organizations to launch Task Force Movement: Life-Cycle Pathways for Veterans and Military into Trucking, chaired by former Congressman and veteran Patrick Murphy, to support the recruitment and retention of veterans and military family members. ...