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Amtrak’s unionized workers are getting $900 holiday bonuses after their managers gave up half of theirs

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Amtrak is redistributing the wealth this holiday season at the urging of the Trump administration.

Amtrak is giving $900 holiday bonuses to its over 18,000 unionized workers, the Department of Transportation said this week.

The bonuses are the result of a deal between the DOT and Amtrak management and its board of directors, the agency said, adding that Amtrak’s executive leadership agreed to give up half of their own bonus package to make it happen.

“Christmas is coming a little early this year for 18,000 @Amtrak frontline workers, thanks to leadership who gave back their holiday bonuses,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in an Instagram post on Friday. 

President Donald Trump’s administration has been critical of the existing bonus structures for Amtrak leadership, with the DOT saying they resulted in “exorbitant payouts for senior staff.” As part of the agreement, Amtrak’s board has agreed to get rid of long-term incentive bonuses for its senior executives, DOT said.

“We applaud Amtrak and its executive leadership team for doing the right thing,” Steven G. Bradbury, the deputy secretary of Transportation and a representative for Duffy to Amtrak’s board, said in a statement.

Amtrak did not respond to a request for comment.

The Wall Street Journal reported that around 246 Amtrak managers gave up part of their bonuses that totaled $16.2 million. The DOT did not provide additional comment or confirm those figures when reached by Business Insider.

In its announcement, the DOT touted Amtrak’s record-breaking year. The national passenger rail service had a record 34.5 million customer trips in the fiscal year that ended in September, posting a record adjusted ticket revenue of $2.7 billion.

The bonuses were reminiscent of some received by other transportation workers this holiday season. The Federal Aviation Administration said it was giving $10,000 bonuses to the nearly 800 air traffic controllers who had perfect attendance during the government shutdown.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at kvlamis@businessinsider.com or Signal at @kelseyv.21. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.




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Special delivery: A woman gave birth in a Waymo robotaxi in San Francisco

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  • A woman gave birth in a robotaxi in San Francisco earlier this week, Waymo confirmed.
  • Waymo told local media that the robotaxi safely delivered its passengers to the hospital.
  • It’s not the first birth recorded in a Waymo, and with the company expanding rapidly, it may not be the last.

One San Francisco robotaxi arrived at its destination with an unexpected extra passenger on Monday.

A woman in labor gave birth in the back seat of a Waymo robotaxi while traveling to the hospital, the company confirmed in a blog post on Wednesday.

“Some people just can’t wait for their first Waymo ride,” the company said.

A spokesperson for the Google-backed robotaxi firm told The San Francisco Standard, which first reported the news, that Waymo’s remote monitoring team detected “unusual activity” in the backseat of the driverless vehicle.

Employees called 911 once they realised what was happening. But the robotaxi delivered its passengers to the hospital without needing assistance, and was subsequently removed from Waymo’s fleet for cleaning.

Apparently, it’s not the first time someone has given birth in a Waymo, with the company confirming to The San Francisco Standard that a similar incident previously occurred in Phoenix.

Waymo is growing up fast

Waymo has had a big year, with the company’s robotaxis becoming a regular sight on San Francisco’s streets, alongside expansions into new markets in Austin and Atlanta.

On Wednesday, Waymo said it had served over 14 million trips so far this year, and expected to hit 1 million rides a week by the end of 2025.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Last month, Waymo issued a software update to 3,067 robotaxis after reports that its vehicles were driving past stopped school buses, according to a regulatory report filed on Thursday.

Waymo is planning a major expansion next year as it faces competition from Tesla’s nascent robotaxi service, which launched in Austin in June.

The robotaxi company plans to open its driverless ride-hailing service to the public in a host of new cities in 2026, including Miami and Washington, DC.




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We gave our daughter $20,000 for a wedding, but she used it for a home down payment and paid for her own wedding. Everyone was happy.

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When Mike’s daughter got engaged, he and his wife wanted to help pay for it.

Mike, who asked Business Insider to only use his first name for privacy reasons, estimated that a wedding in the Kansas City area would cost between $15,000 and $25,000 at the time, which was around 2015.

Mike and his wife decided they could put $20,000 towards the wedding, but they knew wedding spending can get out of hand and that emotions tend to run high during the planning process.

So instead of working closely with their daughter on her wedding plans and talking through each potential cost, they came up with a straightforward solution: give her and her fiancé a lump sum of $20,000 and let them do all the planning.

“I didn’t want to be telling my daughter what she could and couldn’t do,” he said. “She was an adult.”

Mike said the strategy took the pressure off him and his wife and helped avoid any wrestling over who was buying what or what his daughter could and could not have at her own wedding. He also said it helped him and his wife contribute the amount they wanted without going over budget by adding on things here and there.

In 2023, the national average cost of a wedding was $35,000, according to The Knot, while the average cost in Kansas was $25,000. Still, most couples end up going over their budget. A Real Weddings Study by The Knot found 56% of couple spent an average of $7,600 more on their wedding than they planned. Others exceeded their budget by more than $10,000.

While tradition typically has the bride’s family primarily paying for a wedding, those customs are changing, especially as Americans get married later in life and are more able to take on their own wedding costs. A 2023 study from The Knot found it’s more common for couples and their families to split the costs equally.

Mike, his wife, their daughter, and her fiancé were all happy with the lump-sum agreement.

“Then they kind of tricked me,” he said, laughing. “One day, they came home and said, ‘Hey, we bought a house.'”

The couple took the $20,000 and used it to put a down payment on their home — before they actually had their wedding, which they then planned to pay for out of their own pocket.

Initially, Mike was surprised, but ultimately, he thought it was a good thing that his daughter and her fiancé paid for their own wedding.

“If kids are not given carte blanche on wedding plans, if they’re forced to budget from their own standpoint, the whole thing just doesn’t get out of hand,” he said.

The couple held the wedding at the rose garden in Loose Park, a large public park in Kansas City, and at a popular reception hall. Mike said everything about the wedding seemed reasonable but that he never learned what they ended up spending.

“I never asked,” he said.

If the couple had used the money for a down payment and then eloped, Mike said that may have bothered him. But as long as he and his wife were still able to attend their daughter’s wedding, they were happy.

“I figured I got off for a reasonable amount of money for the wedding, and they got a down payment on a house out of the deal and a wedding,” he said.

Mike said he thinks too many people get caught up on the lavish weddings they see on TikTok, but that it can take away from the “whole point of having a wedding, which is to have a marriage.”

He also said that he thinks by helping them learn how to budget their money for a wedding, it was also a good step towards learning how to budget in a marriage.

Mike’s wife did end up giving their daughter a bit more money in the end, which he thinks was for something having to do with her dress.

“She snuck it in,” he said, laughing. “She couldn’t resist.”

Have a news tip or a story to share about the costs of throwing a wedding or being in a bridal party? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@businessinsider.com.


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