Wages and Working Conditions of Truck Drivers at the Port of Long Beach

Abstract

Using data from a survey of drivers at the Port of Long Beach, models of earnings, waiting time, and safety are estimated. These drivers, lower paid than truckers at the national level, receive no returns on experience or tenure and spend, on average, 48 percent of their work day waiting to get into and out of the Port. Paid by the trip, there is little incentive for firms to use their time efficiently and a great deal of pressure for drivers to complete trips quickly. We find that drivers who own their trucks have a higher probability of accepting unsafe chassis and taking them on the road. We conclude that the inefficient use of drivers’ time leads to negative externalities of pollution and unsafe driving.