For the second year in a row, driver wages did not keep pace with the rate of inflation, and it doesn't look like that will change in 2026. Still driver wages and benefits combined to surpassed $1 per mile for the first time.
Those are just two of the insights on trucker pay and benefits included in the American Transportation Research Institutes's latest study of the trucking industry's operational costs. It also found driver pay and benefit costs varied by the size of fleets, what they haul and where they are located.
According to ATRI's Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, in 2025, industry-wide driver wages rose by 2.5% while inflation rose by 2.7%. ATRI said that was similar to 2024, when wages rose by 2.4% while inflation rose by 2.9%.
The culprit: primarily the ongoing freight recession, which has plagued the industry in the post-pandemic years.
ATRI said, "Reduced freight demand translated into reduced driver demand in 2025, and the number of production and nonsupervisory employees in long-distance trucking (a proxy for tractor-trailer drivers) declined from 667,900 in December 2024 to 656,500 in December 2025."
In 2025, driver wages accounted for .818 cents per mile, and driver benefits cost trucking companies .210 cents per mile. The combined total of $1.028 per mile is the first time the combination of wages and benefits exceeded $! per mile, according to. ATRI.
The outlook for driver pay this year is equally modest. In the first two months of 2026, carriers reported that driver wage costs were up 1.6 percent on average.
ATRI's report found driver wages varied based on the size of fleets and what the the services they provide.
The study said truckload carrier driver wages continued to be competitive across most fleet size groups. It said less than 4.5 cents separated the average wages from 26-truck fleets to 1,000-truck fleets, all of which increased from 2024.
Average wages were lowest in fleets with fewer than 26 trucks, and they were highest in fleets with more than 1,000 trucks. These two size groups each saw a decrease in average driver wages compared to 2024.
However, ATRI found that specialized carriers had higher wages than truckload carriers in every size category except fleets with more than 1,000 trucks. Average per-mile wages increased for every specialized fleet size group in 2025, with the highest average in the 101-250-truck fleet size group.
In the LTL sector, per-mile driver wages, generally linehaul, remained flat at $0.929 per mile in 2025. LTL hourly driver wages, generally pickup and delivery, averaged $37.95; this was an increase of 2.7%, slightly higher than the industry as a whole.
Driver pay cost per mile varied depending on geographic location. ATRI found costs per mile included:
- $0.748 in the Midwest
- $0.852 in the Northeast
- $0.802 in the Southeast
- $0.781 in the South Central
- $0.764 in the West
Wage outlook for 2026
According to the ATRI study, "Driver wages are currently on track for a third year of sub-inflationary increase (2024-2026), giving back some of the gains in real income (i.e. inflation-adjusted) experienced during the three years of aggressive wage increases in the pandemic freight boom (2021-2023)."
The moderate rate of driver wage growth is partly due to an overall softening in the U.S. labor market, according to ATRI. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2025, across all occupations, wages grew by just 2.7 percent – identical to the year’s inflation rate and lower than 2024’s 3.7% wage gain.
Furthermore, national unemployment continued to inch upward in the first half of 2026, with monthly figures ranging from 4.3 to 4.5 percent. A less competitive labor market means less wage competition among motor carriers for drivers, according to ATRI.
Though freight rates rose in the opening months of 2026, this improvement was largely the result of long-running reductions in industry capacity rather than an increase in freight demand, the ATRI report said. Even with recent months of employment growth, the number of production and nonsupervisory employees in long-distance trucking – a proxy for truck drivers – remains below 2024 levels and well below pre-pandemic levels.
After moderate growth in 2025, BLS data shows that weekly average driver wages jumped over $1,300 for the first time in January and February of 2026. Yet weekly wages proceeded to fall in March and April even as driver employment rose.
ATRI said this recent disparity – increasing driver employment but decreasing driver wages – underscores a key feature of the 2026 labor market in trucking. Even though rates are improving due to reduced industry capacity, a significant increase in driver hiring is unlikely without a significant increase in freight demand. As long as there is no significant organic growth in driver demand, driver wages are likely to remain relatively stable, said ATRI.
Bonuses: Referral, retention down; safety, fuel economy up
Over 70 percent of carriers paid out driver bonuses in 2025. The five most common bonus types were:
- safety (49% of carriers)
- referral (41%)
- starting (27%)
- retention (14%)
- fuel economy (12%).
B ut, the percentage of carriers offering bonuses of each type fell in 2025.
Other bonus types not tracked in this report include performance, mileage, rigging, and employee ownership; while these bonuses are less common, for some specialized carriers they constitut a significant portion of driver compensation.
Starting, retention, and referral bonuses all fell in 2025 compared to 2024, as driver demand lessened amid the worsening freight recession. Safety (9.9%) and fuel economy (25.3%) bonuses, by contrast, each grew in 2025 as carriers looked to reward cost-saving behaviors.
Driver benefits a leading cost
The cost of driver benefits rose by 6.6% from 2024 to 2025 for an industry-wide average of $0.210 per mile. This was the second year in a row in which the rate of growth in driver benefits costs outpaced driver wages as one of the fastest-rising line-items, following an increase of 4.8% from 2023 to 2024.
Truckload driver benefits costs were generally consistent across fleet size, with the exception of fleets with fewer than 26 trucks. ATRI said small fleets historically have offered the fewest benefits for drivers, though in recent years they have become more competitive and thus more costly.
In 2021, truckload fleets with fewer than 26 trucks spent just $0.072 per mile; in 2025, they spent $0.100 – an increase of 39% from 2021. Fleets with 101-250 trucks and 251-1,000 trucks had the highest rate of increase; their driver benefits costs rose by more than one cent or 9% per mile, while costs for other fleet sizes were more or less stable year-over-year.
According to the ATRI study, in the specialized sectors driver benefits costs increased significantly across all fleet sizes. As with driver wages, specialized driver benefits were highest among fleets with 101-250 trucks ($0.226 per mile), followed by fleets with 251-1,000 trucks ($0.207 per mile) and smallest among fleets with fewer than 26 trucks ($0.135 per mile).
LTL driver benefits costs were the highest of all three broad sector groups, averaging $0.344 per mile (primarily in linehaul) and $14.48 per hour (primarily in pickup and delivery). These costs represented increases of 4.9% and 9.7%, respectively.
In comparison with 2024, there was slight increase in the percentage of fleets offering insurance benefits (health, dental, etc.) and 401(k)s but a decrease in the percentage of fleets offering paid time off (vacation and sick leave).
While nearly 100 percent of fleets offered health insurance, there was considerable disparity between small and large fleets in all other benefit offerings. For example, there was a 22-point difference in the percentages of small and large fleets that offered 401(k) benefits, the second most common benefit offered overall.
ATRI said driver benefits, unlike driver wages, are all but assured to rise substantially in 2026 given that they are more closely linked with medical care inflation than with freight markets. In the first two months of 2026, carriers reported that driver benefits costs were up 4.5% on average.
Yet it is still possible that the increase in driver benefits costs in 2026 will moderate compared to 2025, according to ATRI. Medical care inflation rose more slowly in the first half of 2026 than in 2025 according to BLS, at an annualized rate of 2.5% versus 3.0%
