I presume they'll talk up the $21/hour price point in PR while pretending gas, insurance, maintenance, etc. don't cost anything.
> Ensuring drivers would earn a minimum of approximately $21 per hour while on a trip, including the costs of their average expenses
Same thing with maintenance. Yeah, that oil change may have cost $40... but none of it was incurred while on a trip.
For example, "$21 per hour while on a trip" could mean that, if a driver takes a fare 30 minutes out of town then returns empty, they are only paid $10.50 for the hour's work because returning empty was not "on a trip"
Compare to their blog here[1] where they are much clearer. "[T]he median driver in Seattle makes between $19 and $21 per hour before expenses. A typical expense range is between $2.94 and $6.46 per hour"
[1] https://www.uber.com/blog/seattle/a-look-at-driver-earnings-...
Insurance: 2400 / yr (guesstimate, maybe lower) Miles driven per year: 50k [1] Cost per mile (Incl depreciation) = 0.26$ [2] Cost per year to drive = 0.26 * 52k = 13520 Total = ~$16k per year in post tax earnings.
(Assuming numbers above still work ) Min 21$ / hr = 43,680 Minus taxes = 40,175 Minus driving costs = 24175
post-tax income per month ~= $2k
Assuming a single driver lives outside the immediate SF area, "commutes" to work, and shares an apartment, it's enough to survive. There's plenty of other jobs that pay less, so it seems unfair to target Uber on this number. You can expect to get by temporarily or make a bit of extra cash with Uber, but it's not a long term career for a driver - but I expect most drivers know that already.
[1] https://ride.guru/lounge/p/how-many-miles-do-uber-and-lyft-d... [2] https://bizfluent.com/how-5914430-compute-depreciation-based...
No it's not. That there are worse jobs elsewhere in no way implies these people are asking for anything unfair. Uber got where it is by greedily violating every regulation on the books and now that they are facing these "unfair" unionizers they demand regulation? Please.
[Edit]: I'll add in another source in line with the IRS rate. See AAA: https://newsroom.aaa.com/tag/driving-cost-per-mile/
That has to be more expensive than maintaining sizeable taxi service fleet. No matter how you make it Uber is taking 30-40% markup and letting drivers to eat the extra cost from this business model.