Say you're a trucker working 60 hours a week that's $22.55/hour.
Here's the day of a truck driver...
Most truck drivers are paid by the mile. If you're a long-haul truck driver you live in your truck. Driving all day, then sitting at a warehouse for 3 hours while you get unloaded. You're not getting paid while sitting there but you also can't leave. You have to stay with the truck at all times. Then it's 11pm when you're finally unloaded and you have to find a truck stop to park and sleep at. The closest truck stop is 10 miles away but it's 11pm, it might be full. You only have 20 minutes of legal driving time left on your log book. Do you risk going to the truck stop even though it might be full and you run out of driving hours or do you try to find a street to park on? Most cities don't allow trucks to park on the street so that's a gamble too.
If you run out of hours looking for a spot to park you risk getting a fine if you are inspected. State troopers and police can pull truck drivers over at any time for an inspection. If you are fined it's out of your own pocket, not the company.
So even if you were doing your job perfectly legally, you ran out of time because the warehouse took too long to unload. Now you might get fined and completely wipe out any income you made today. It also goes on your driving record and future companies won't hire you if you have too many incidents.
Now it's 6am and you're not feeling well and need to use the bathroom. The truck stop bathroom has a 15 minute wait but your next pickup is in 30 minutes and it's a 20 minute drive way.
Also your kids birthday is tomorrow but you might not make it back in time.
Now do this every day for less than $25/hour. All while every car on the road rages at you because your truck is limited to 65mph.
They said underpaid, not low paid. It's not just a job, it's a way of living that completely dominates your life and taxes your body with the lifestyle associated with it.
Clearly not enough people are willing to make that tradeoff for the salary.
It is still low paid. Money per hour, volatility of income, and quality of life at work including morbidity and mortality risk are just as relevant as money per year.
BLS does not incorporate these metrics, but there is an easy way to see if a job is low paid relative to quality of life at work (and outside of work). And that is to see people advise their kids to aspire to be. Doctor, lawyer, engineer, but not truck driver.
I dont know how reliable these indeed salaries are, I also know many many many drivers that are making less than 50K a year putting in 50-60 hours a week (or more) and are away from their familes for 5-7 days at a time
The average salary for a truck driver is $70,363 per year in the United States.
https://www.indeed.com/career/truck-driver/salaries