Transit workers in many cities get paid more than twice as much as private sector employees working in transportation, according to a new report from the Heritage Foundation. The report compared average pay by major transit agencies in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington with the average pay for all workers and the pay for transport workers in those regions.
Transit Premium Over Other Workers in Same Region
| City | All Workers | Transport Workers |
|---|---|---|
| Atlanta | 11.7% | 58.8% |
| Chicago | 31.4% | 77.1% |
| New York | 50.1% | 27.1% |
| Philadelphia | 39.7% | 109.7% |
| San Francisco | 61.0% | 147.8% |
| Washington | 31.5% | 121.1% |
As shown in the table, Heritage Foundation researcher David Ditch calculated that average transit pay is anywhere from 12 to 61 percent greater than average pay for all workers in these regions and 59 to 148 percent more than average pay for transport workers. There are a couple of caveats, however.
Ditch calculated transit agency pay by dividing total labor costs, as revealed in agency budgets, by the number of full-time equivalent employees. The result included base pay, overtime, and pension and health-care benefits.
For other people, Ditch relied on data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which presents hourly pay rates for workers in each urban area by occupation. Hourly rates don’t include overtime, pension, and health care benefits. For that, Ditch relied on Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates of benefits and “supplemental pay” (which presumably includes overtime) by occupation.
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More important, supplemental pay in the private transportation sector is only 3.2 percent of total compensation. In contrast, many transit employees earn half or more of their incomes in overtime. I can’t prove it with the data on hand, but I suspect that overtime is the main reason why transit employees make so much more than private sector transport workers.
Ditch notes that the unions have insisted that transit agencies strictly limit how many part-time employees they can hire. In the case of Washington Metro, it is no more than 10 to 15 percent of the workforce. Considering that transit ridership peaks during a few morning and afternoon rush hours, the limit on part-time employees forces transit agencies to pay a lot of overtime.
The result is that thousands of bus drivers earn more than $100,000 a year, and some train workers earn more than $200,000 a year. Rather than pay this much overtime, private-sector companies would hire more workers, but transit agencies are unable to do so. It is easier for transit executives to agree to worker demands, which will have to be paid for by taxpayers, than to fight for more economical rules.
Ironically, despite this high pay, transit agencies are facing a shortage of bus drivers. This was a problem before the pandemic, and it was made worse by the pandemic.
This may mean that transit agencies actually aren’t paying their employees enough. But it could also mean that the union rules that lead to so much overtime also make transit work more stressful due to long and inconvenient hours of work. Perhaps taxpayers and transit employees would both be better off if those rules were relaxed.
Many years ago our suburb’s garbage was collected by city employees. Today many (most? all?) suburbs use outside contractors. The big city we are suburban to still uses city employees.
There’s a lesson here.
Also, it is easier for politicians to agree to large campaign contributions from transit unions than to legilsate for more economical rules.
We’re talking about unions here. Bad unions like transit unions strongly restrict new hires so the existing members have the option of earning huge amounts of overtime, if they desire. Not all of them do, but it is typically the employer that has free reign in scheduling work, so a lot of drivers are forcibly overworked. Up to a point, of course. DOT rules apply, and I imagine it’s not legal for ANY bus driver of ANY sort to drive more than 12 hours in a shift (the rules state no more than 13 or 14 hours on duty consecutively (forgot which one) before at least 10 hours off, of which either it’s either a max of 11 or 12 on road).