This article lost me with the above statement. Perhaps it's not relevant to the central thesis of the piece, but to say that truckers are "well paid" is misguid

This article lost me with the above statement. Perhaps it's not relevant to the central thesis of the piece, but to say that truckers are "well paid" is misguided. My father drove a truck for almost 2 decades. I would be very surprised if he ever drove fewer than 80 hours a week...and I'd be equally surprised if he was an outlier in this respect. The work is painfully hard. It takes a toll on the drivers physically (because they're sedentary so much and because of the terrible ecosystem of truck stop food available to them), emotionally (endless hours staring at a road alone), and mentally. At the end of the day, they're lucky if they take home a minimum wage hourly rate for the work they do. There are jobs out there that I wish we could find a way to get people out of and into other lines of work because, for the work they do, what they take home is a pittance and the price they pay is high. Truck driving would be way up on that list.