Hello. This is a very important reminder before I start this. Today, Friday, May 30th, is Falafel Friday at Search Engine. That means that at noon Eastern time, we're going to have lunch together over Zoom, and we will be joined by our friend and fellow podcaster, Jonathan Goldstein from Heavyweight.
Jonathan is one of the greats, and someone who, hearing himself described as one of the greats, is probably immediately squirming in his chair somewhere in the American Midwest. Anyway, the great Jonathan Goldstein is joining us. I will have questions for him. Maybe I'll take some listener questions for him. Lunch is at noon Eastern time. The link to join will arrive in your inbox an hour before at 11 a.m. Eastern time.
This event is for paid subscribers only, so if you are an Incognito Mode member, you'll receive the email. If you're not an Incognito Mode member, you can sign up at searchengine.show. And if you have any issues, email me at pjvote85 at gmail.com. And yes, we will make a recording of the event available for our Incognito Mode members after the fact. Okay, today, Friday, May 30th at noon.
please bring your own falafel. Thank you. As for this week, we are sharing an episode of a new podcast made by one of our label mates over at Odyssey. I think just for starters, can you just say your name and what you do? Yeah, my name is Courtney Harrell and I am a producer and I host the show What We Spend.
Courtney is a veteran podcast producer. She's worked a lot with one of my favorite hosts, Dan Daburski, both on the series Running From Cops and 912. She is now hosting herself. Her new show is about money. I think about money all the time. I have always thought about money all the time. I would say that I have traditionally been a high anxiety money person where...
You know, I started tracking every expense that I made when I was a teenager. And what prompted that? Being afraid I wasn't going to have enough money to do things. Do you recall your teenage expenses? I mean, some of it was just like food. Yeah. But it was like also I took a tap dancing class whenever I was a teenager. I'm not a big dancer, but like I remember like really tracking how much the like tap shoes were going to cost. And I remember like.
buying songs on iTunes for my iPod. And you would put like the 99 cent expenditure in? Yeah. So it'd be like chumbawamba 99 cents. Totally. Each episode of what we spend follows one person who talks very openly about the money they make and the money they spend. It's like sneaking into someone else's checking account for a week. You meet a woman in Utah clawing her way out from under student loans. You meet a freelance actor planning for the uncertain period between gigs.
It's funny with your show, as I've been listening to it, there's something like literally just hearing someone say not just what they make, but in detail what they spend in a month. I have this feeling, am I hearing something illicit? Oh, the first time I was in an interview and somebody said I got a check and I was like, how much was that check for? And then like shrunk back in my seat because it actually felt like so crazy to be like, no, specifically, like, tell me.
how much you're talking about for all of these things. What makes money such a funny taboo is like, you know, we have like taboos around our bodies and we have taboos around our language and we have taboos around like all sorts of parts of... or the way we think, or self-presentation, but money's a funny one because somebody...
might feel ashamed that they don't make enough. They might feel ashamed that they make too much. And depending on who they're in front of, the same person could have both feelings. I feel like that's why people don't talk about it. Totally.
So this week on Search Engine, we're talking about it. We're sharing an episode of what we spend that I chose to share with you. It's about the financial life of an American trucker, a category of worker we've been thinking about a lot in our office these days. What other jobs did you work before this one? I did have work for CityBus, and I came back to trucking, I want to say four years ago. And even my son, when he was little, I showed him a truck.
And he said, my mama's driving a truck. I'm like, yeah, the bills got to be paid, baby. I saw it as a way to get my bills paid. And it seemed to have some enjoyment about it, I thought. And it does. We just need better pay. This is Maxine. She is a 60-year-old long-haul truck driver based in North Carolina. How big is the truck? Oh, this is a 53-foot trailer. Oh, that's really big, right? That's it. Yes. Do people ask you to honk your horn all the time?
Sometimes, especially babies, and I don't mind. I've had babies myself. They're all grown and grandbabies. I don't mind. I love everybody's babies. Maxine took time off for a few other jobs, but she's been trucking off and on for different companies since 2004. She's driven routes all over the country, but right now she works what's called a dedicated route, which means she's always delivering home goods for a specific company through the same stretch of the country.
We talked on the phone before she headed out from North Carolina for her next drive to South Carolina and then on to Louisiana. Maxine is one of about three and a half million truckers in the U.S. who literally make the rest of our lives possible. She is an indispensable part of American life. And like a lot of truckers, she is not making enough to get by. Maxine works hard. Week after week, she barely buys anything, and still, she can't always pay her bills. And she is not alone.
This week, we're going to follow Maxine through a week of her life on the road and hear the benefits and the price of life as a trucker. I'm Courtney Harrell, and this is What We Spend. The first thing to know about trucking is that the pay is confusing. You can get paid by the day, by the hour, or by the mile. The companies can choose to pay you in that way.
I'm paying now by the mile. By the mile, okay. Companies typically choose how to pay based on the kind of route someone is driving. So hourly pay is more likely for local routes with frequent stops in a smaller area. But most long-haul truckers like Maxine are paid by the mile, not hours worked.
How much you earn per mile is a calculation of a bunch of factors. What you're carrying, how far you're driving, who you're driving for, and how many years you've been doing this. But no matter your rate, you only earn that if you're moving. on the road with a truck full of goods. How much money do you make? Okay, so my taxes this year, I think it was 40... 4,000. Okay. And it fell from grace. I was making like 1,600 a week. I saw my way of being able to get a home.
and a little bit of land and place to park the truck trailer. But it went from that to my checks could be $380, $480 in one week. What happened? Rates and loads. Basically, Maxine told me that these days there's less merchandise for her to carry and she's getting paid less to carry it. That is not just a Maxine problem.
The freight market has been in a recession the last few years, because when manufacturing, construction, and retail markets slow down, there's just less goods to carry, fewer loads. And that means there's less work available, which leads to lower rates. And, you know, drivers get together and talk. If you can imagine, we're in the yard.
And we're walking outside talking to each other about Lowe's, like, hey, what's going on with you? What's going on with you? We're all saying, you know, the Lowe issue. And this young man that used to work at Walmart, he was like, I, uh... Might have to go back to Walmart because there's no loads. I got bills, townsport, blah, blah, blah. And I prayed about it. I said, Lord, I don't know what type of mountains I got to climb and what's going to be thrown at me.
But I can't keep going from job to job to job. They all seem to have problems with loads. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average trucker takes home about 57,000 a year. about 10,000 more than Maxine made last year. But remember, they're paid by the mile, so sometimes drivers like Maxine end up on the road for so long waiting for loads to come through that if they were paid hourly, they'd be making less than minimum wage.
I've had paychecks where it was zero, where I owed the company. Oh, wow. Yeah, I got two paychecks in a row like that. Wait, what do you owe the company for? It's because I borrowed $500 advance from the next paycheck. so I could make rent. Then say my next pay was only $480. Then I owe the company the rest of that advance, and then it'll go into the next week as well.
And if, say, that week was the week that the truck set up, and between setting up and not having a load until the following week, then I won't have a paycheck that week either. What do you do when you don't have a paycheck come through or when you get a paycheck that's like I owe money?
Let me tell you, I came back to where I was living. I sat down with the manager. I never left them alone, the manager of the apartment complex. I always showed up when I told them I was going to show up if I had money or not. And I signed a promissory note to pay within six months, period. And he told me, he said, Maxine, we know, I believe you'll pay. You've always told us what was up and was here. Yeah.
And if I had nothing left, I made sure he got paid and my other bills got paid. My finance company, my credit card. I didn't ditch out on nobody. Maxine owes money to a finance company because she took out what's called a debt consolidation loan to reduce a bunch of her debt to one payment with a lower interest rate. So now the game play is I pay off the credit card in the finance company. $296 with the finance company up the street. I think I got $1,800 left on theirs.
And then I have another finance company that I pay $450 to a month. And there's $17,000. Is that debt from regular living expenses or is there a larger expense that is just from bills? That's from me not making the money that I need. Maxine really doesn't have that many regular expenses. Her health insurance comes out of her pay, and then she spends about 120 a month on utilities, 80 a month on her phone, 645 a month on her car and insurance, and about 80 a month on gas.
The biggest expense weighing her down is her rent, which is $1,400 a month for her one bedroom in North Carolina. But after all that, she often has to put her groceries on her credit card. I spend quite a bit because of toiletries. You have to have a makeshift bathroom. And see, the thing is with truck drivers, a lot of times we don't have a bathroom.
Or if they have one, they won't let us use it. And we can't stop the restaurant. What do you do? You got to make it. Some people buy buckets and make good poetry. I see. You know, and it goes into the garbage bags. Oh, God. garbage bags and things like that, cleaner and things like that. Like I'm looking at right now, I got, last night I went and got paper towels and I went to Dollar General and I shopped Dollar General quite a bit.
$15 each. One, two, three, four, five, seven, eight rolls. Oh, wow. I got it on each side, the big, giant rolls, okay? Now, I'll go through a whole pack of that. in about five days whoa those are things that people don't know that's a lot of experience and you gotta have that each week and you're gonna run out yeah you try to run out on payday
Supplies like Maxine's paper towels aren't typically covered by trucking companies. Some companies do offer per diems to help with those kinds of travel costs, but there's no law requiring it. so more than half of trucking companies just don't. Despite that, despite the low pay and the loads and the makeshift bathroom, Maxine loves driving her truck. How did you get into it initially? I kind of, well, after life hit me, I looked at, you know, you have the B and the C plan. Yeah.
As a child, you know, it was medical, the medical field and nursing. I kind of clicked with that, you know, and I had the issues that was horrible. throughout my youth, and I went through a lot of abusive stuff. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, he was a monster. But when I got into my adult life and I started looking at, you know, other plans and my father always said, you know, you're really good with driving. My mother said that too.
I would help with the church members, especially elderly church members, and get them to church. I'll give you an example. When I started driving buses, I had one of the most toughest instructors to check me. And when he told me, he said, Maxine. You're putting me to sleep. I was like, dang, I got it. If I could put your butt to sleep, amen. Yeah, I mean, that is impressive. Wow. So when I got my chance to learn how to drive the trailers, I did.
So you had your parents saying you were a good driver. Yeah. What else was it about trucking that made you be like, oh, as soon as I get the chance to do that, that's what I'm going to do? Just driving. Makes me calm. Driving calms me down. I feel safe when I'm driving. And that's probably from my background, my childhood and teenagehood and stuff. Just like being in a space where I feel comfortable and it worked out.
Maxine went to trucking school in Kansas, where she learned a bunch of driving techniques that would help once she was out there on her own. Like, how to turn no matter how long the wheels span. How to keep control through high-grade hills. How to see the road in front of a long-nosed truck. And she learned a healthy respect for the massive machines. Learned to stay vigilant all the time. And she loved it. What is the best part of the job?
Knowing that you're doing something meaningful, the importance of getting the goods there, and, you know, just feeling like that you're doing something good. that needs to happen. You're getting stuff to people that they need. Right, and getting into the little towns that need things and it's hard for them to get because, you know, having empty shelves. Not a happy town. I think a lot of us associate driving on big, long, open roads the way that you do.
with freedom does it feel that way to you you feel that you do yeah you you definitely you you feel that you can you feel that mostly when you first start driving when when you're new to it That's your first feel like, wow, the freedom of doing this and I'm on a meaningful job. And it can be healing. The road can be actually healing.
Whatever you've been through in your life or still going through, everything is fresh and new and it feels so good. And you are meeting people and the food on the road. Suckers' nose seem to know the best places to eat. And you, you know, you can feel that freedom. After the break... We'll dive in to Maxine's week. Audio Diary Day 1. I'm recording in Polk, Florida in a company tractor trailer at a rest stop. Today, I started my morning out as usual.
You start your pre-trips, starting inside the truck and then outside the truck, checking everything out thoroughly. After things are clear and you can get on the road, you start your travel. And it was a really good morning for travel. Very nice. Very nice drive. I kept driving to around 10, took a quick break in the Florida Welcome Trucks rest stop off of 75 South, which was a very...
Very, very nice looking rest stop. Very clean looking. I got to talk to a few people as I went about my business. So I didn't hang around long. Had to get back and do a 30 minute break. and uh got back on 75 south and uh you know cars are gonna cut through traffic and cut the trucks off that's pretty normal The better thing is not to cut them off and not to get in front of them. Some cars will speed.
as if they're gonna keep their speed and get in front of the truck and all of a sudden slow completely down to almost a stop and they love to do this going downhill You're carrying maybe 44,000 pounds more, 43,000 pounds more. The last thing you need is a car almost coming to a stop in front of you. Trucks are pretty strong, but they're not perfect and they can't stop on a dime.
So you do the best you can with what you got to work with. Anyway, I got the load where it needed to go. I detached from my load. Then I found my empty trailer to attach to. And went out to find a parking spot, which is not always easy. But I felt very blessed to find one at a rest stop. And that has been my day. I'm still in Florida, and I'll be moving out in the morning. Maxine had already bought the food she needed the day before, so her total for day one was zero dollars.
This is Audio Diary 2. After I got up, I usually kind of check out the scenery, what's going on, what movement. Can I move the truck? Is there someone that's going to be blocking me? Then from there, we have what's called the EOD in the truck. This is a tablet and it's a computer tablet. So all of our messages and work information comes through that. and what we do during the day if we stop all of our movements and information goes on that.
So we can correspond with our company and they can correspond back with us. When you get your GPS set, everything checked out, and you're personally ready to go. I did all of that this morning and headed toward 4 East. My goal was to get to Jacksonville area so I can keep moving toward Alabama. I got to a stop, truck stop. This is a little different. This is called a gas and go. It's where I perched tonight. The gas and go, it's like a mini grocery store.
have everything from frozen meats which i did need for my little freezer in my truck so i grabbed up just a few cold items for that freezer some turkey sausages some corn I think I got sweet peas, which I love sweet peas, especially with my rice. And throw those items in the fridge. And I tried their potatoes. They got... a little deli in there. They make the best wedge potatoes. Also, I saw a little brownie and I almost didn't allow myself to have it.
But I did. And I'm glad I did. That was a very, very good brownie. So I spent tonight $42.06. Which is crazy. But I now have food in the freezer. That'll last me a month. Are you in the truck right now? I am. Yeah, will you just kind of describe the inside of it to me? Like, what would I see if I was in there? Well, when you get in and you'll see the steering wheel, the seats, and all of the...
electronic equipment and things, and then there's a bed. I don't have the best hips and back, but I have two mattresses, cubbies in the front, and in the back area, there's... Cabinets I put food in. And I have some cooking themes so I can cook. A little glance, and that's G-A-L-A-N-Z. Those things are wonderful. Refrigerator.
and a little oven. I've had the refrigerator and oven in here. The refrigerator I bought, the oven, one of the drivers had a glance, and he gave me a glance. How do you cook in there? Well, I have a little pan. We have an inverter that you can plug it up to. And a buddy of mine gave me a coffee pot that falls water in seconds. So I get my teas. I love teas. As long as Maxine stays at her current job, she's always driving the same truck.
So all these things in her kitchen, plus the tea and the extra mattress and an old picture of her son's basketball team, make the truck she spends so much time in feel more like her own. This is Audio Diary 3. I started my day pretty much the same. I made the two and a half hour drive from that gas and go to the Alabama. 280 west and that was for the delivery of the the freight and uh i got it there a few days early so uh they allowed me
to park the trailer. And then I could bobtail out. And part of the truck that's only the truck without the trailer is called a bobtail. So... I bobbed tail out. I headed to the Loves. It was about 45 minutes, maybe 53 minutes away through the mountains. It had its high points and low drops, you know, lots of curves in the road. But once I got to the loves, I did go buy a Taco Bell. And get a quesadilla. I spent $8. And inside loves.
I spent another $8, so that's a total of $16 for the day. I made a park here at the Loves. And that would put me into a 34-hour reset time. Your 34-hour reset is the amount of time you're required to take off before starting a new work week. So a driver is only allowed to work 70 hours in an eight-day period. And then they have to take that break. So in this time, most drivers like to do their laundry, touch base with their families. They'll have showers.
And usually they have other little restaurants inside so they can do a little bit of shopping. So I did not have to do that this time because I've already picked up some things during the week that was needed for the truck. That is usually what most drivers do on their 34-hour reset. I will be talking to you tomorrow. $16 at Love's Truck Stop. This is Audio Diary 4. This is the end of my 34 hour reset for the 70 hour clock.
on the truck so that means i didn't drive today i um went into the truck stop store i went in there because i have fun a swelling feet sometimes and it didn't go down I noticed so I went in to get something for it got a little gel like icy thing you can Either throw in the refrigerator or you can heat it. They had it half price for around just $15.
And I got some hydrous drinks. And there was something else because my total was $26 for the day. I got me a wonderful shower. I got to talk to family. I got to do some music. Maxine loves to listen to music while she drives. Mostly gospel, rock and roll, a little country. But she also loves opera, and she loves to sing. So in her downtime, she's learning to sing O Mio Papino Caro.
I didn't want to get too loud. So even though I'm in a truck, I don't want to disturb anyone. So I just kept it to a minimum. I'll draw the curtains. We have like blackout curtains. I'll draw the curtains. Sometimes I'll open it because it's sitting behind the curtains all the time. On your time off, it can get dreary. So I'll open it so I can see out and things like that.
Some truckers mingle. I'm not a good mingler. So I'll find something to do in my truck, you know. I have some knitting needles here somewhere, right there. That's probably it. Later on, try to get a little tiny sewing to make something. But that has been it. Total for day four, $26. This is Audio Diary 5. Now, what I want to explain is like the days that I was not moving, you don't get paid for that. If the truck breaks down.
You're not paid. It can be just bad equipment, shoddy equipment, or something went wrong. If something happens and you get to a constant need and say they cancel. You don't get paid. You should get paid something because you're in the vehicle, you're on duty as an employee, but you don't get paid. expenses for us like gloves, hammers, things like that. That is all on us that you need for your truck.
Expenses for GPS that will run you probably between $400 and $1,200. That's all on us. If you're needing parking and... There's no more free parking. My experience is between $20 and $30. There's some that's higher and there's some that's lower than $17. I don't think I've ever seen it lower than $17. That money you may or may not get back. A lot of times you won't get it back. There are some companies I've read that they will pay it back. And that's a toss up.
And if you got a load and a truck responsibility, you want to make sure nothing happens to it. So we're caught between a rock and a hard place. Can I ask like this part of your job that's like, OK. I don't get paid if all of these things happen with my truck or with the load. How does that make you feel? You feel abandoned. Maxine kind of is abandoned.
Ever since the 1980s, the trucking industry has become increasingly deregulated. And now there's no law that says trucking companies have to cover expenses like parking or supplies. So it's left up to truckers to figure out how to get through the job. and then how to pay for life outside the job. And for Maxine, she can no longer make both things work. Once I was going through this over and over and over again, my rent got behind.
And for a whole year, it stayed behind until the point where, yeah, I could not renew because I didn't make enough money to pay the $1,400 rent. After months of working 14-hour days and waiting, waiting, waiting for her pay to improve so she could catch up on bills, Maxine was forced to make a really hard decision. She decided she had to give up her apartment.
After day five, she headed back to North Carolina and started packing up. As I look around, I'm not liking this. I'm not liking packing everything. And getting all this stuff in storage. It's one of those things that you don't want to have to go through. I've been there before. And when you believe an industry should be stable and it's not, you know, I tell myself everything is for a reason. You know, take this time to pay down all your debt.
and maybe I could get that land and a little house on there or build a house on there, and I'll have place for a tractor and trailer or a small business. The apartment, I'm always... keeping everything up as I go. Thank God it's clean. Carpet's clean, still looks new. They won't have a problem with finding someone. But I just hate it. I hate going through it. It's daunting. Very painful. And the finances is crazy. We need rental caps.
all across the United States, there's nothing wrong with making a profit. Everybody's for a profit, but not so much that you're killing your citizens. Makes no sense. And the industry, the transportation industry, need to pay a living wage. All of us, from trucking to bus, city buses.
We need a living right. No truck driver should be homeless. They need a home. They need land. They need a home. They need a place to put securement for loads that they're going to take out the next day. They need that. I don't believe it. Where did you go stay after you... Left your place. I live in the truck. You live in the truck full time. I live in the truck full time. And see, let me tell you, that's scary. Because now you're given full trust.
The company that I came from have quite a bit of truck drivers that are living in their vehicles. How do you all talk to each other about that? What do you say to each other? I'll ask them about the pay. When we get together and we start talking about pay, they'll mention that they live in a truck, you know, so they could get their bills paid. I've talked to a guy.
He was telling me that him and his wife, you know, had to give up their home. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, okay, that's how they're making up for the pay and the non-pay. And he told me, he said, you might want to try that. I said, not voluntarily. That was during that time. I did not see that it was going to happen. And see, from here, it would be on the street. Now you got truck drivers retiring on the street. This is Audio Diary.
Seven. I'm in North Carolina, where I live. I'm home, and the only expenditures I did is preparation for the truck when I leave out. I'm hoping to leave out Friday. They have me for Monday, but I need to make some money for this week. So I spent between, let's say, approximately $20.
I think the paper towels is, let's see. Yeah, that's about the only thing that I bought. But I am home, just moving, putting stuff in storage. And it's... very scared i'm so scared about this thing i love my little apartment but i gotta go how much money would you need to make to be able to reliably have a home again I need to go back, at least with the economy being the way it is, between, I'm saying, 14 and 16.
That should do it. A week. That's not going to put me a week. If the job is paying so far below what you need to meet your basic needs. What is keeping you in this job? The trucking industry is one where if you move around too much... You won't get hired. Yeah. That's what I know about it. Yeah. It's a slip of the coin. So you got to stay stable a few years in something, whether it's good or bad.
You know? And I'm thinking just pay everything off. Yeah. I can see myself doing that. Live out of the truck and pay everything off. Maybe within months or half a year, things will change back. Are there other jobs besides trucking that you could imagine having more stability in? without training um like i've taken up some phlebotomy on the side here just on my own just reading and i have thought about it and i am looking um of what
can be done. And I've also thought about there's drivers I've talked to that drive part-time and they have a second job. So I'm joshing some things around. I'm a worker. We talked before about the freedom you would feel on the road. Do you still feel that when you're driving now? I do. I do, and I look forward to a refreshing feeling. I do want to be able to go home and have a little garden and get on my back porch.
I got a lot of Southern in me and fall asleep in the chair of the little couch outside that I would design for myself. When you're talking about your long-term future that you are imagining for yourself, your dream of this land, does that include... Trucking? Or is your kind of like long-term dream leaving trucking behind? It definitely includes trucking because I can see myself driving less as I get older in life.
And, you know, it's going that way. It depends on what life throws at me. I mean, I could end up teaching it. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But I don't know what it is about the trucks. I think it's because we live in it, work daily with it. It kind of becomes a part of you, you know? Yeah. Leaving it can be like a divorce. You're going to need some counseling. In the weeks after recording the episode, Maxine was still living in her truck and saving money towards the future.
But she did get one piece of good news. Her company is getting her a newer truck. Thank you to Alex Leslie at the American Transportation Research Institute and Steve Vasselli. They both helped us understand the trucking industry for this episode. If you want to know more, check out Steve's book.
The Big Rig, Trucking, and the Decline of the American Dream. What We Spend is an Odyssey original podcast. It's written and hosted by me, Courtney Harrell. Our producers are Margot Gray and Kristen Torres. Our editor is Jonathan Menjivar. Our executive producers are Maddie Sprunkheiser and Leah Reese-Dennis. Theme song and original music by Matt McGinley. Additional music from APM Music. Mixing by Pedro Alvira.
Special thanks to Melissa Akiko-Slaughter, Joel Lovell, Jenna Weiss-Berman, J.D. Crowley, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, Hilary Sheff, Sean Cherry, Laura Berman, and Hilary Van Ornam. If you want to be on What We Spend, we'd love to hear from you.