The school year began once again with many public schools reporting they’re struggling to hire and retain school bus drivers. Indeed, our analysis of the latest data finds that the longstanding school bus driver shortage is getting worse. K–12 school bus driver employment fell by 5.0% over the past year and is now 15.0% below 2019 staffing levels.

This reversal from the modest gain in school bus driver employment that occurred in 2025 is likely tied to the decline in inflation-adjusted hourly wages for school bus drivers since last fall. Notably, this contrasts with hourly pay for bus drivers outside of schools, which at least kept pace with inflation.

Public schools are facing daunting budget challenges resulting from the expiration of pandemic-era federal funds, the expansion of private school voucher programs, the Trump administration’s dismantling of the Department of Education, and the 2025 Republican tax and spending bill’s massive cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, which directly impact public school funding. Funding losses combined with significantly higher costs—including the diesel fuel that most school buses use—spell trouble for school districts trying to maintain adequate staffing. A shortage of school bus drivers leads to route cuts, delays, increased safety risks, and other hurdles for students and their families, as well as higher traffic congestion during student commute periods. Without adequate funding for public education and competitive pay for essential public school staff, entire communities suffer.

Rather than returning to pre-pandemic levels, bus driver employment is falling again

The shortfall in bus drivers is a problem that has been growing for over a decade. Figure A shows that since last fall, school bus driver employment dropped by nearly 10,200 jobs, a 5.0% decline and the largest single-year drop since 2022.

These job losses occurred among both school bus drivers employed directly by school districts and those employed by privately contracted firms. At the start of this school year, there were nearly 34,000 fewer (-15.0%) school bus drivers employed overall compared with September 2019. Private-sector school bus driver employment is down by more than one-third (-35.9%) compared with 2019, while state and local government bus driver employment is 9.2% lower than 2019.

Both sectors have lost the ground they gained last year, when bus driver employment seemed to be recovering from pandemic job losses. Unfortunately, this decline is a return to form: Despite a steady uptick in the late 2010s, bus driver employment has largely been falling since the Great Recession, when austerity and budget cuts forced schools to lay off drivers and reduce services—the same choices school districts are facing today.

Without enough bus drivers, schools are forced to cut routes—including to after-school programming—and resort to alternative transportation options. For some students, school buses are the only option for getting to class. For others, these buses provide vital transportation to special education programs or after-school care. Some school districts have resorted to asking sports coaches to get commercial driver’s licenses so they can transport children to after-school games, while others are canceling sporting events altogether.

Fewer bus drivers also means longer routes, crowded buses, and frequent delays, making it harder for students to arrive at school on time. Studies show that regular tardiness disrupts learning and academic achievement not just for the students coming in late, but for their classmates as well. Overfilled buses are harder for drivers to manage—a challenge made worse if school districts lack adequate support staff (bus aides and paraprofessionals) who can travel alongside students with special needs. Investing in bus drivers and other key support staff is critical to the safety and well-being of students as much as it is important for the workers themselves.

Inadequate wages are fueling the decline in school bus driver employment

After a modest increase in 2025, hourly wages for school bus drivers fell in 2026. Figure B shows that median hourly wages for school bus drivers were $22.49, 0.7% lower than at this time last year after adjusting for inflation.1 Sadly, this decline in real (inflation-adjusted) wages is a return to the long-term trend for these workers. As Figure B also shows, wages for school bus drivers were essentially flat for nearly the entire 2010s.

Notably, this was not the case for bus drivers writ large, who experienced wage growth last year and over the past decade.2 This indicates a serious challenge for school districts: Workers with the requisite skills and licensing can generally earn more driving buses other than school buses.

Working longer hours has allowed school bus drivers to still get ahead. Bus drivers do not work typical schedules; they are often not full-time employees and instead work a “split-shift” schedule coinciding with the beginning and end of the school day. As shown in Figure C, even though school bus driver hourly wages fell this past year, inflation-adjusted median weekly wages rose 3.9%. This is likely an indication that drivers are working longer shifts or driving extra days to make up for employment shortages. While the extra hours may allow some school bus drivers to make ends meet, it is not a long-term solution. Overworking a limited staff is potentially dangerous and fails to replenish the ranks of an occupation that is disproportionately older. The only way to ensure schools have the staff they need is to raise pay enough for workers to support their families and for school bus jobs to compete with other bus driving positions.

Public schools are facing profound and novel threats that will exacerbate the bus driver shortage

Falling school bus driver pay over the past year is undoubtedly a product of faster inflation and school districts’ struggle to keep up with rising costs as federal pandemic relief funds expired. Provided by Congress in 2020 and 2021, the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund allocated $189.5 billion to public K–12 schools to address the impact of the pandemic and reopen safely and effectively. Districts that were able to pay drivers using ESSER funds through the end of the 2024–2025 school year are now grappling with sizable budget shortfalls.

Rather than respond to these needs with increased federal support, the Trump administration has decimated the Department of Education, slashed federal support for public education, and enforced violent anti-immigrant policies that affect workers and families with school-age children alike. The massive cuts to Medicaid and SNAP enacted by Republicans in the 2025 tax and spending bill (H.R. 1) will also directly harm schools, many of which rely on Medicaid funding for health and special education services.

The administration has also enacted a national school voucher program that will only exacerbate these funding problems. The federal voucher program will funnel taxpayer dollars from public services to private school subsidies that disproportionately benefit wealthy families, many of whom are already enrolled in private schools. The current regulations also bar state lawmakers from enforcing any guardrails for their state’s programs that exceed the minimal requirements defined by H.R. 1. This means that states that opt in are relinquishing control over critical education policy and sacrificing existing protections for students and their families.

Compounding the problem, many state lawmakers are also undermining public school funding. Over the past year, more states have adopted or expanded harmful private school voucher programs and property tax caps and cuts, constraining one of the primary sources of public-school funding in most states. In the face of rising costs for workers, families, and school districts, these are steps in precisely the wrong direction.

School bus drivers are just one of the many occupations affected by these attacks, but they play a critical role in delivering a safe and effective K–12 education system. If state and local lawmakers want the children in their regions to get to school on time, have reliable access to after-school programs, and otherwise attend healthy, supportive schools, then they must provide stronger funding for public schools and better pay for school staff.

Notes

1. Due to sample size constraints, our data are 36-month rolling averages. That overlap means rapid changes take longer to show up in the data; however, this decline in inflation-adjusted wages is consistent with broader trends for workers across the economy.

2. School bus drivers make up 39.4% of all bus drivers.