It's entirely self-inflicted by the greed and avarice of the trucking companies. Such as paying $3/hour for the first 40k miles driven, which is 4-6 months of

It's entirely self-inflicted by the greed and avarice of the trucking companies. Such as paying $3/hour for the first 40k miles driven, which is 4-6 months of employment depending on whether driving in city areas or doing longer haul highway driving. You can read the summmary of the Supreme Court case called New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira to see some of the scummy tactics that large trucking firms pull on people: "In the present case, Dominic Oliveira sought employment with New Prime Inc., an American trucking company. When he was hired, he first had to drive 10,000 miles as an unpaid "trainee", followed by 30,000 miles as an "apprentice" working at US$4 an hour. Oliveira was then brought into the company proper, he was given the option to be hired as an employee, or as an independent contractor, which the company asserted would be more economical for Oliveira. Oliveira opted to be hired as a contractor. However, because he was an independent contractor, this allowed New Prime to charge Oliveira and other drivers through leasing of the New Prime vehicles and to pay for their own fuel and equipment through deductions from their paychecks, items that the company would normally pay for if the person was an employee. Oliveira frequently found these costs exceeded his base rate, effectively paying New Prime for his employment. While the terms of his independent contract allow him to drive for other companies, Oliveira found that his schedule was heavily dictated by New Prime. Oliveira eventually dropped the independent contractor and was rehired as an employee of New Prime, where his work duties and commitment were essentially identical to what he had done as an independent contractor, but taking home much more from his paycheck." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Prime_Inc._v._Oliveira https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Prime_Inc._v._Oliveira