- Bus drivers move huge numbers of Americans to and from their destinations every day.
- The job is more lucrative in some states than others.
- Transit and intercity bus drivers tend to make more than school and special-client bus drivers in most states.
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Bus drivers are a crucial part of most cities' transit infrastructures, and the job is more lucrative in some states than others.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment Statistics program publishes annual estimates of the median earnings for workers in the US employed in several hundred occupational groups around the country. The data includes two categories for bus drivers: Public transit and intercity (i.e., Greyhound) bus drivers, and school and special-client (such as elderly or disabled passengers) bus drivers.
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The above map shows median annual wages from May 2018, the most recent period for which data is available, for the first category: transit and intercity bus drivers. Typical wages for those drivers range from $26,110 in Oklahoma to $67,040 in New York.
School and special-client bus drivers tend to make less in most states than their transit and intercity driver peers. Median annual wages for drivers in this category range from $18,160 in Alabama to $44,630 in Alaska. This map shows median wages for school and special-client bus drivers on the same scale as the above map:
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