FOR THE RECORD: In a March 16 article entitled NY/NJ Port Chief Joins Calls to Overturn Trucking Deregulation Law, PMM Online incorrectly compared gross wages for Long Beach and Los Angeles drayage drivers to net wages for New York/New Jersey port drivers. A 2009 Rutgers University study mentioned in the article found that average net income for NY/NJ drayage drivers was $28,000 per year. We should have stated that the two most widely cited studies of the LA/LB drayage drivers, conducted in 2004 and 2007 by Cal State Long Beach researchers, found average annual net income for drivers 24.7 percent higher and 32.4 percent higher, respectively, than those found in the Rutgers study. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.
On March 25, Rutgers University Professor David Bensman wrote to PMM Online:
"Your article of March 16, entitled NY/NJ Port Chief Joins Calls to Overturn Trucking Deregulation Law contains a reference to a research report that I did at Rutgers University in 2009. Your reporter incorrectly states that my research contradicts the findings of two studies done at the San Pedro ports. Any fair-minded reader of the three studies will see that the three reports are in agreement with each other. Your article makes it appear that there is a conflict because it compares the gross earnings of port drivers in Los Angeles and Long Beach with the net earnings of drivers in Newark and Elizabeth. This is clearly misleading. The gross earnings cited for LA and Long Beach drivers do not reflect the fact that drivers are paying for diesel fuel, tolls, tires, maintenance, licenses, and many other expenses. When these are deducted, the owner operators are earning no more than $11 per hour."
Response from PMM Online Editor Keith Higginbotham:
Professor Bensman is correct in pointing out my error in comparing gross wages for Long Beach and Los Angeles drayage drivers to net wages for New York/New Jersey port drivers. This was not done in an attempt to mislead, but was simply a mistake of pulling the wrong wage data from the two Cal State Long Beach drayage studies. I apologize for any confusion this may have created.
However, despite the incorrect citations, it does not change the point made in the article that Professor Bensman's findings regarding wages for New York/New Jersey port drivers are not consistent with the two Cal State Long Beach studies of the drayage driver wages in Southern California.
This is not to question the efficacy of Professor Bensman's research – there is no doubt his findings are an accurate sampling of wages for the NY/NJ group he surveyed. However, it would be incorrect to state that his study and those conducted in 2004 and 2007 in Southern California are consistent on the topic of net wages for drivers. In fact, his NY/NJ findings skew rather dramatically from the results in Southern California.
The two Cal State Long Beach studies cited in the Rutgers study are “Study of Port Drayage at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach,” Cal State Long Beach, Kristen Monaco & Lisa Grobar, 2004; and, “Incentivizing Truck Retrofitting in Port Drayage: A Study of Drivers at the Ports of Los Angeles, and Long Beach,” Cal State Long Beach, Kristen Monaco, 2007.
The two authors are both widely respected senior research academics at the METRANS Transportation Center, a transportation research partnership between Cal State Long Beach and the University of Southern California.
Professor Bensman's study found that NY/NJ drayage drivers earned an average net annual income of $28,000 (in 2008 dollars, when his surveys were conducted).
In the 2004 Cal State Long Beach study, Grobar and Monaco, on page 13, state “We asked drivers to report their pay in 2003 net of truck expenses. The average driver earned $29,903 in 2003…”
In 2008 dollars this equates to an average annual net income of $34,934. This is 24.7 percent higher than what the Rutgers study found.
In the 2007 Cal State Long Beach study, Monaco states on page 23, “We also asked owner operators to report their earnings over the past 12 months net of truck expenses. The mean net annual income reported is $34,749…”
In 2008 dollars, this is an average annual net income of $37,079. This is 32.4 percent higher than what the Rutgers study found.
It is my contention that such disparities between the three studies' findings of average annual net income – NY/NJ wages nearly 25 percent lower compared to one Cal State Long Beach study and just over 32 percent lower compared to another – certainly fall within any credible definition of "inconsistent." Certainly anyone experiencing a nearly 25 percent reduction or increase in annual net income (or 32 percent for that matter) would consider this a significant difference.
