The Biden administration emphasized progress on several recent initiatives aimed at getting more people into trucking jobs but the potential for a freight recession threatens to undermine some of that progress, at least in the short term.

A fact sheet released by the White House on Monday pointed to major changes in the trucking industry over the past year, including record job numbers.

“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,” it stated. “And frontline truckers’ real wages grew this year despite elevated inflation.”

Biden acknowledged that drivers are still facing challenges, however.

During remarks on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday to update the status of the administration’s Trucking Action Plan, he pointed out that the average truck driver waits – often without pay – four and a half hours for their truck to be loaded and unloaded during an 11-hour shift. He also said average truck driver pay has fallen to $25/hour, down from $34/hour in 1978 (adjusting for inflation).

However, “we’re building a better economy around American manufacturing and American supply chains,” he said. “Thanks to the infrastructure law, we’re making the largest investment in roads and bridges since creation of the Interstate Highway system....

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