Courtney Harrell (Host)
speaker
376 appearances
10 recordings
3 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard May 2025
Courtney Harrell (Host)’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Social housing is government-owned housing that's built to be high quality and stay affordable. But unlike public housing in the U.S., it's open to people across all income levels. And it's a model that's worked really well in other countries.
Where did Brit and Celeste end up in the period of time that you were following them?
So both still without secure housing.
Brian, thank you so much for taking the time to talk about your book and your very important reporting.
Brian's book is There Is No Place For Us. What we spend is an Odyssey original podcast. It's written and hosted by me, Courtney Harrell. Our producers are Margo Gray and Kristen Torres. Our editor is Jonathan Menjivar. Our executive producers are Maris Brunkheiser and Leah Reese Dennis. Theme song and original music by Matt McGinley. Additional music from APM Music. Mixing by Pedro Alvira.
This is Maxine. She is a 60-year-old long-haul truck driver based in North Carolina. How big is the truck? Oh, this is a 53-foot trailer. Oh, that's really big, right? That's it. Yes. Do people ask you to honk your horn all the time?
Maxine took time off for a few other jobs, but she's been trucking off and on for different companies since 2004. She's driven routes all over the country, but right now she works what's called a dedicated route, which means she's always delivering home goods for a specific company through the same stretch of the country.
We talked on the phone before she headed out from North Carolina for her next drive to South Carolina and then on to Louisiana. Maxine is one of about three and a half million truckers in the U.S. who literally make the rest of our lives possible. She is an indispensable part of American life. And like a lot of truckers, she is not making enough to get by. Maxine works hard.
Week after week, she barely buys anything. And still, she can't always pay her bills. And she is not alone. This week, we're going to follow Maxine through a week of her life on the road and hear the benefits and the price of life as a trucker. I'm Courtney Harrell, and this is what we spend. The first thing to know about trucking is that the pay is confusing.
Companies typically choose how to pay based on the kind of route someone is driving. So hourly pay is more likely for local routes with frequent stops in a smaller area. But most long-haul truckers like Maxine are paid by the mile, not hours worked. How much you earn per mile is a calculation of a bunch of factors.
What you're carrying, how far you're driving, who you're driving for, and how many years you've been doing this. But no matter your rate, you only earn that if you're moving, on the road with a truck full of goods. How much money do you make?
Rates and loads. Basically, Maxine told me that these days there's less merchandise for her to carry and she's getting paid less to carry it. That is not just a Maxine problem. The freight market has been in a recession the last few years because when manufacturing, construction and retail markets slow down, there's just less goods to carry, fewer loads.
And that means there's less work available, which leads to lower rates.
According to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average trucker takes home about $57,000 a year, about $10,000 more than Maxine made last year. But remember, they're paid by the mile. So sometimes drivers like Maxine end up on the road for so long waiting for loads to come through that if they were paid hourly, they'd be making less than minimum wage.
Oh, wow.
What do you do when you don't have a paycheck come through or when you get a paycheck that's like, I owe money?
Maxine owes money to a finance company because she took out what's called a debt consolidation loan to reduce a bunch of her debt to one payment with a lower interest rate.
Is that debt from regular living expenses or is there a larger expense that is just from bills?
Maxine really doesn't have that many regular expenses. Her health insurance comes out of her pay, and then she spends about $120 a month on utilities, $80 a month on her phone, $645 a month on her car and insurance, and about $80 a month on gas. The biggest expense weighing her down is her rent, which is $1,400 a month for her one bedroom in North Carolina.
But after all that, she often has to put her groceries on her credit card.
Showing 81–100 of 376 · page 5 of 19
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