Key findings:

• School bus driver employment has increased modestly in the last year but is still 9.5% lower than in 2019. 
• The recent increase appears to be driven by rising wages—school bus drivers have seen 4.2% real hourly wage growth in the past year, the quickest rate since the pandemic.
• However, the end of pandemic relief funds—in conjunction with the instability and attacks on public education by the Trump administration—threaten to reverse this recent progress.

The school bus driver shortage continues to play out across the country, making it more challenging for students to get to school and placing additional burdens on the K–12 public education system. As has been typical in recent years, the beginning of the school year brought forward a steady stream of reports documenting challenges schools are experiencing hiring bus drivers. Our latest analysis finds that school bus driver employment remains 9.5% below 2019 staffing levels.

But there are positive signs that school districts are taking steps to address the shortage. School bus driver employment overall has increased modestly in the last year, with growth in public K–12 schools likely being driven by increasing hourly wages for bus drivers.

It is important to note the available data likely do not fully capture the impact of the ending of pandemic relief funds or the instability for school districts created by the Trump administration. During the summer—a vital time for school district planning and hiring decisions—the Trump administration temporarily withheld $6.2 billion in funds from before- and after-school programs and teacher development. The Trump administration is also seeking to fully dismantle the Department of Education. Harsh anti-immigrant policies are also having harmful impacts on students and education staff. Under these circumstances, more time is needed to get a better sense of how policy changes during 2025 have impacted the K–12 education workforce.

Bus driver employment has grown modestly but remains far below pre-pandemic levels

The shortage of bus drivers is still acute and harmful to working families and their children. This fall, school districts in Missouri, Vermont, and Maine reduced bus routes and other bus services. These types of cuts can eliminate a student’s only way to attend school, including for students with disabilities who rely on buses to attend schools with enhanced special education services. Inconsistent bus schedules and routes can also contribute to absenteeism and missed school meals. Roughly half of all school children use a school bus to get to school, meaning a healthy public education system requires investment in these key support staff.

Figure A shows that there were 21,200 fewer (-9.5%) school bus drivers employed in August 2025 compared with August 2019. The private sector has experienced the largest decrease in employment, despite making up a small share of overall school bus driver employment. There are 12,800 fewer private school bus drivers than in 2019, a decrease of more than a quarter (-28.8%). State and local government school bus driver employment is down overall as well, but much less dramatically (-4.6%).

In the last year, school bus driver employment has grown modestly by around 2,300 jobs.1 This small increase (1.1%) is a step in the right direction, but the trend of the last few years remains mostly flat. Employment growth has been much stronger in the public sector than for privately employed bus drivers. State and local government school bus driver employment has increased by almost 9,900 since the fall of 2024, but private employment has fallen by 8,200 jobs over the same period.

To account for small sample sizes in the Current Population Survey (CPS), our employment analysis uses a 12-month rolling average of data, which means figures reported for August 2025 include data from September 2024. August 2025 data is currently the most recent CPS data available due to the ongoing government shutdown.

Figure A Rising wages may be driving recent increase in school bus driver employment

The recent increase in school bus driver employment appears to be driven by rising wages for these workers. Recruitment for school bus drivers can be difficult because it often requires a “split-shift” schedule coinciding with the beginning and ending of the school day. It is also a low-wage job, which contributes to school bus drivers experiencing poverty at greater rates than other employed workers. However, Figure B shows that hourly wages have grown steadily over the last year. In August 2025, the median hourly wage for school bus drivers was $22.45, 4.2% greater than last year when accounting for inflation.2

This level of wage growth has not been the norm over the past 15 years. For much of the 2010s, wages for these workers mostly stagnated. Austerity and budget cuts in the 2010s not only contributed to a steady decrease in school bus driver employment but also meant there were few resources available for school districts to invest in school bus driver wages. The apparent wage growth in 2020 was likely influenced by the large compositional changes in the labor market during the pandemic, when large numbers of workers—including bus drivers—dropped out of the labor force.  These dramatic changes in the labor force, in conjunction with the challenges of administering the CPS during the pandemic, mean we shouldn’t draw meaningful conclusions about wages for these workers during that period. More recently, the wage growth for school bus drivers in the last year stands out as a much-needed investment in this critical segment of the education workforce.

Figure B Other education support occupations still face shortages

Bus drivers were not the only education support occupation that experienced large declines in employment during the pandemic. In 2022, we documented significant employment losses in K–12 education overall, including teaching assistants, school custodians, and teachers. Figure C shows the change in employment between August 2019 and August 2025 for all K–12 education and key occupational categories. Overall education employment slightly exceeds its 2019 levels (1.4%), but the recovery has been uneven across occupation groups. The number of paraprofessionals (teaching assistants and early childhood educators) has grown 16.5% since 2019. However, administrative staff are slightly below their 2019 employment level (-3.0%), while teachers (-4.3%) and food service workers (-4.3%) have experienced more marked declines. Custodian employment is 12.4% below its 2019 levels, an even larger decrease than what school bus drivers have experienced.

Figure C Federal policy changes threaten recent progress, showing need for state and local action

The recovery in overall education employment has been fueled by the use of pandemic relief funds provided by Congress in 2020 and 2021. The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) allocated $189.5 billion to public K–12 schools to address the impact of the pandemic and reopen safely and effectively. Even for occupations like school bus drivers which have not seen a full recovery, the progress made in the last year has been heavily supported by these federal dollars. These funds ran out at the end of the 2024–2025 school year, and it is too early to say whether the end of this support will reverse this progress.

The Trump administration’s actions are also creating instability for these workers. The Trump administration is gutting the Department of Education, and with it, the oversight of billions of dollars that go to low-income school districts, civil rights protections for students, and special education programs. More threats to public education are on the way, including the creation of a national school voucher program in the Republican-passed reconciliation bill. When fully implemented, this program is likely to expand the use of school vouchers, which will drain resources from public school systems.

A healthy K–12 public education system needs strong bus driver wage growth to continue to bring more workers into the occupation, but instability at the federal level could jeopardize those trends as school districts scramble to account for changes in funding. Bus drivers play a vital role in providing a safe, supportive, and effective K–12 education system. In the face of tremendous federal threats, state and local lawmakers must do everything they can to shore up resources for public schools.

Notes

1. Total bus driver employment includes federal, state and local government, and private-sector workers.

2. School bus drivers tend to work fewer hours than typical workers, but weekly wages are also growing steadily (4.4% growth year-over-year).