# UPS driver. US $170k per year?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 20, 2023, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813 "2023-08-20T01:43:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/1 "2023-08-20T01:43:07Z")
I’ve met a lot of truckers working as a doctor. It’s a pretty hard life, especially the long-haul international stuff. It’s stressful to be in traffic all the time, way most people drive. It’s not my place to say what people should be paid, and this isn’t the thread where I am going to do that. I admire their work ethic, and it is an underappreciated and important job. To make the money claimed they must be working around the clock…
It’s more about the _accuracy_ of the article (below). Can this really be true?
> **[Opinion: UPS drivers make US$170,000 a year, highlighting our addiction to...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-ups-drivers-salary-delivery-services/)**
>
> What does it say about our consumer addiction when drivers are making what would be considered healthy pay packages even in white-collar jobs?
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/2 "2023-08-20T01:50:00Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#):
>
> I’ve met a lot of truckers working as a doctor. It’s a pretty hard life, especially the long-haul international stuff. It’s stressful to be in traffic all the time, way most people drive. It’s not my place to say what people should be paid, and this isn’t the thread where I am going to do that. I admire their work ethic, and it is an underappreciated and important job. To make the money claimed they must be working around the clock…
>
> It’s more about the _accuracy_ of the article (below). Can this really be true? -
>
> [Opinion: UPS drivers make US$170,000 a year, highlighting our addiction to delivery services - The Globe and Mail](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-ups-drivers-salary-delivery-services/)
That’s pay _and_ benefits. I noticed the author of the article “neglected” to mention what those benefits are.
Top that with the usual rant of how the common worker is overpaid with no mention of how grossly overpaid the CEO, Board of Directors and top level executives are.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/3 "2023-08-20T01:50:03Z")
The article says “salary and benefits.” That includes vacation, insurance, 40lK, and anything else the employer can class as a benefit (I’ve seen employers claim their share of Social Security as a “benefit” rather than a tax.)
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### Author:  [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/4 "2023-08-20T01:54:04Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#):
>
> It’s more about the _accuracy_ of the article (below). Can this really be true?
>
> [Opinion: UPS drivers make US$170,000 a year, highlighting our addiction to delivery services - The Globe and Mail](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-ups-drivers-salary-delivery-services/)
…it’s an _opinion_ piece. It says that right there at the top of the page. If you want to test the accuracy then you should really be reading articles that aren’t opinions.
From here:
> **[“We’ve Changed the Game”: Teamsters Win Historic UPS Contract](https://teamster.org/2023/07/weve-changed-the-game-teamsters-win-historic-ups-contract/)**
>
> (WASHINGTON) – Today, the Teamsters reached the most historic tentative agreement for workers in the history of UPS, protecting and rewarding more than 340,00
> [@](#):
>
> - Wage increases for full-timers will keep UPS Teamsters the highest paid delivery drivers in the nation, improving their average **top rate** to $49 per hour.
>
> - Current UPS Teamsters working part-time would receive longevity wage increases of up to $1.50 per hour on top of new hourly raises, compounding their earnings.
>
> - New part-time hires at UPS would start at $21 per hour and advance to $23 per hour.
Bolding mine. A _top_ rate of $42 an hour. New hires would be half that. Plus benefits.
The $170,000 figure was based on a claim by UPS CEO Carol Tomé made on an earnings call.
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### Author:  [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/5 "2023-08-20T03:41:47Z")
Facts are facts. In my experience, articles claiming salaries tend to refer to the most highly paid small group, not necessarily what most people make. They tend to ignore expenses and include benefits or things that others might not include. They are not above exaggeration nor having a separate agenda. So this seemed suspect. It’s not an issue I care personally about. Hardworking people should be compensated. It just set off my BS detector.
The comments on the article include:
_Poorly written article. That figure ($170K) is not the salary paid to drivers. That amount includes all their benefits as well, like health care, pension, dental, etc. In the US, those benefits are a substantial amount. I would say that the drivers make just under $100K, which is still a pretty good wage. If I were a younger man living in rural America, that would be the job I’d want._
_this articles clarifies….that high rate is for 60hrs/week, in the last year of the contract and includes value of the benefits…the spokesperson says the 170K number is “misleading”_
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/6 "2023-08-20T04:04:20Z")
Even for describing a _compensation package_ it’s misleading by not including an usually high hours per week that the wages are based on. I also suspect that drivers couldn’t work 60 hours a week regularly even if they wanted to.
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/7 "2023-08-20T04:16:17Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#):
>
> The $170,000 figure was based on a claim by UPS CEO Carol Tomé made on an earnings call.
I wonder if Tomé might have some ulterior motive when it comes to accusing people of being overpaid…
[UPS CEO's total pay was $19M in 2022](https://www.ajc.com/news/business/ups-ceos-total-pay-was-19m-in-2022/WEG2ZRQZUNDB3EXEOEFMDMC6Q4/#:~:text=Tom%C3%A9%20brought%20in%20nearly%20%2419,was%20from%20incentive%20plan%20compensation).
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/8 "2023-08-20T04:26:03Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#):
>
> To make the money claimed they must be working around the clock
According to the union website linked in a post above, the new _ **average** _ top rate is $49/hour. It’s not hard to see how someone working significantly more than a 40-hour week – as so many of us do – could pull in nearly $3000 a week. Even assuming two weeks of unpaid vacation every year, that adds up to $150,000 a year. Not hard to see how someone making more than the top-tier average could pull in as much $170K. It’s a more reasonable number if that includes benefits, but even as a net earning, it’s not completely out of whack with the facts even if it assumes stressfully long weeks. I know a doctor who has a busy commitment to hospital rounds AND a busy practice with long days, and regularly works Saturdays, who I’m sure is way over the 60-hours-per-week line.
From your perspective as a Canadian, I guess this helps explain why UPS charges a $40 “brokerage” fee on a $10 T-shirt shipped to Canada from a US vendor. This is no joke. UPS is notorious for their extortionate brokerage fees, to the point that both buyers and sellers who are aware of the scam avoid UPS like the plague.
> [@running\_coach](#):
>
> Top that with the usual rant of how the common worker is overpaid with no mention of how grossly overpaid the CEO, Board of Directors and top level executives are.
The union article cites the improved compensation for 340,000 rank-and-file UPS workers. Not to defend exorbitant CEO compensation, because it really is shamelessly exorbitant, but in fairness, how many CEOs and top executives does UPS have?
> [@Smapti](#):
>
> [UPS CEO’s total pay was $19M in 2022](https://www.ajc.com/news/business/ups-ceos-total-pay-was-19m-in-2022/WEG2ZRQZUNDB3EXEOEFMDMC6Q4/#:~:text=Tom%C3%A9%20brought%20in%20nearly%20%2419,was%20from%20incentive%20plan%20compensation).
Which is maybe the total earnings of 200 rank-and-file employees. Also, actual salary was $1.5 million, and most of the rest was stock related. Still shameful, but potentially worth it if a CEO is a really great leader. The biggest problem is that so few of them are, and far too many rake in millions while being literally worse than useless.
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### Author:  [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/9 "2023-08-20T16:36:28Z")
I cannot say if my information is current. But I remember back-in-the-day, when UPS drivers had brown canvas covered wagons, policy was to hire part-time, and to keep people on part-time as long as possible.
Why? Part-time gets none of the benefits or the protections of full time. No sick leave, no vacation, no holidays, no 401K, no steady pay increases, no seniority, no job security, etc etc.
I have to give a shrug to the claims of UPS drivers “making all that money.”
~VOW
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### Author:  [@dogbutler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogbutler)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/10 "2023-08-20T19:17:05Z")
PT UPSer here. The union has gotten the part timers benefits, paid vacation and holidays, pension(inferior to ft pension, but still)and sick pay. It can take 8-10 years to get a full time position.
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/11 "2023-08-20T19:39:28Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> UPS is notorious for their extortionate brokerage fees, to the point that both buyers and sellers who are aware of the scam avoid UPS like the plague.
This is the problem. I assume that UPS has a monopoly on the delivery of letters, which is a rapidly declining market. Delivery of parcels is a competitive business, and the Union may discover, as many have before, that they have priced their members out of the market.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/12 "2023-08-20T19:42:16Z")
> [@bob\_2](#):
>
> I assume that UPS has a monopoly on the delivery of letters
Are you confusing UPS with the USPS (United States Postal Service)?
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/13 "2023-08-20T19:45:10Z")
Yes. So UPS will soon be heading for Admistration
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/14 "2023-08-20T19:49:07Z")
What are you saying?
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/15 "2023-08-20T20:16:06Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> According to the union website linked in a post above, the new _ **average** _ top rate is $49/hour.
No, I could be wrong but I think that will be the wage in 2028 in the terminal year of the contract, when it will be worth a bit less less than $49/hr in 2023. It’s not an awesome contract IMHO, insomuch it is a series of flat increases instead of being a COLA-adjusted percentage that can swing with the economic times. Extrapolating back from the verbiage it appears current top wages are in the range of $42.50/hr.
The thing is adding in benefits is deceptive. Projecting max income based on overtime is even more so and always pisses me off in these discussions. The thing is people are working those backbreaking (literally for some UPS workers, my step-brother used to swing boxes for them and once got knocked out cold by a box of machine parts) extra hours and it is often cheaper for the company to do so. The alternative to employers paying overtime is to a.) hire more workers and pay them benefits, b.) do what UPS does and hire part timers at literally half the wages and reduced benefits.
They should, in my bleeding-barely-capitalist-heart do option a. Hire more people, give them decent wages and benefits, reduce overtime. But our backwards medical system (in the US at least) pushes part of medical costs on to the employer, so benefits package per head costs more than paying OT. So instead of two people getting decent money + benefits, you either get one full-time guy and one part-time guy getting widely disproportionate incomes OR one full-time guy working 60 hour weeks, making more money but degrading their quality of life and the quality of the work. And since labor cost saving are the end-all be-all in many cases, you frequently get a situation where the job calls for two people working 40-hr weeks for a total of 80 man hours, but instead you get one person working 60 or two people (one part-time) working 60. Which results in a sub-par, but “good enough” result. I see this all the time in local government. And then people have the gall to bitch about that one garbage man they saw in the paper making “too much” money for their position by working night and day when the problem lies ENTIRELY with the cheap-ass employers, not the employee trying to get by.
People also bitch simultaneously about the service they get as well as the high taxes they pay. Look, good service cost money. You can have poor service + low taxes. Or great service + high taxes. Or, what you usually get in city governments, some intermediate level of taxation + mediocre service. What you cannot have in low taxes + great service, the world doesn’t work that way. An underpaid, understaffed work force cannot perform miracles.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/16 "2023-08-20T20:47:28Z")
My son drove for them about ten years ago. I think if the salary had been at that level, he’d still be working there.
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### Author:  [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/17 "2023-08-20T20:52:16Z")
Unions matter. UPS employees used to belong to the Teamsters union, I don’t know if they still do. Shutting down UPS for even a few days greatly impacts many other business’ like Amazon. Any mail-order or internet business needs UPS. Having been in charge of shipping at a former job, Fed-Ex is just a poor substitute, they would prefer to let UPS delivery packages and FedX delivering letters and light packages. And USPS or the US postal service is just a joke, they may make the final delivery for FedX or UPS but that is mostly it. They are not even a factor.
There are many non-college jobs that pay very well. My wife sits in a control booth watching machines and a monitor wrap toilet paper for the Koch brothers and makes over 100k per year, and has almost a million dollars in her 401k with 10 years left to go. My local bartender who makes $18 per hour on paper at the local restaurant/bar recently confided in me that she actually makes $6000 per month.
Why are people surprised and even offended that working class jobs can be living wage jobs?
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### Author:  [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/18 "2023-08-20T20:57:00Z")
For the record, not offended, think hard work should pay well. Just the article seemed suspect.
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### Author:  [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/19 "2023-08-20T22:57:59Z")
I would be willing to bet big money the people complaining the loudest wouldn’t last more than a day or two in some of those positions.
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### Author:  [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2023, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ups-driver-us-170k-per-year/988813/20 "2023-08-20T23:05:43Z")
My brother is a retired UPS driver. The $170k number includes benefits, including health care, which is significant. That $170k was put out by corporate America to spark anti-union sentiment. If the US had universal health care like in the developed world, that number would be lower.
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