Home / America's Railroads / Wages & Benefits
AMERICA'S RAILROADS - EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION
Freight rail employees are among the nation’s most highly compensated workers. Despite sharply rising health care costs, railway workers pay only a nominal portion of the cost of their generous benefits.
- Railroad employees are well paid. The average rail employee's compensation is higher than the average paid in industries that employ 91 percent of all U.S. workers.1
- In 2006, the average U.S. freight railroad employee earned $68,000 in wages and another $27,000 in fringe benefits, for total compensation of $90,700 2.
- Rail workers rank 12th out of 57 industries in compensation - ahead of auto workers and employees in other heavily unionized industries.3
- In 2006, Class I carriers paid nearly $2 billion to provide health care benefits to their employees, up from approximately $870 million in 1999.
- Class I railroad outlays for employee health care coverage increased 104% between 1999 and 2006.
- Railroads in 2006 paid an average $12,134 per employee for family medical, dental and vision coverage or about 89 percent of the total cost. Employees' share averaged about $1,487 in 2006.
- In contrast, American workers on average contributed $2,973 in 2006 toward the cost of premiums for family health care coverage.4
- In 2006, U.S. firms on average paid 74 percent of the total cost of family coverage.5
