Uber CEO Works on App for a Day, Reveals Drivers Barely Make Minimum Wage
independent.co.uk
independent.co.uk
This headline is extremely misleading, if not borderline fake news. I was expecting his earnings to be around $8 an hour or something, but he did $19 an hour on a bicycle, ~20% over minimum wage.
The Independent seems to also realize this, because right after that, they feel the need to immediately add that "Uber Eats drivers, part-time contractors who provide their own transportation, food, healthcare, etc, often take home less than that figure, sometimes less than minimum wage."
They seem to be less interested in reporting the facts and more interested in pushing a narrative.
Did they get into expenses for the vehicle with the calculation? Taxes?
I had some fun doing lyft for a month here and there several times - and they kept cutting the rates they paid drivers. The last few weeks I did it I realized the after expenses and taxes was about $6 / hour.
Every uber/lyft driver I've ridden with has told me they have no info about tax time and what's to be expected - and none were saving for it. It's a disaster every year I bet.
I've asked around a bit for banking option that would let you set rules for percentages - like each time money is deposited from place X take 28% and put into other savings account Y - but not found any.. I think it's needed.
I saw a submarine article recently that said a thing called "lilly" debit card type thing made for freelancers(?) - says it can move money based on percentages - but the signup page the article referenced had no info about that feature so I let it linger in a tab and forgot about it.
Whatever the money is with uber/lyft - so many don't understand all the expenses - I try to say it's like getting good money for driving neighbors around - but you don't see that you are basically taking a knife to your brakes and other components, handing over pieces of your car to the riders in exchange for $12 or whatever - and the more you drive the more you are in danger with other cars / etc.. and don't see the actual cost for a long time so you think it's better than what it is.
love to know how many people they have had as drivers and how many do it more than 18 months.
I can deduct not only the logged miles, but miles in between jobs and to/from work sites. If I’m driving 30 miles an hour then I’m deducting $17/hour from auto expenses that will greatly reduce my taxable revenue.
Of course, there are expenses to be paid on the vehicle for fuel, insurance and depreciation. But there are vehicles where this is much less than the IRS deduction that is just flat for all vehicles.
Garbage headline.
And that's assuming that for some reason the PR stunt showed no preference to the CEO in route assignment and otherwise was an up and up demo.
Me, I'm just taking it as pretty definite proof that people are more than willing to occasionally work below minimum wage. I'm seeing it as a pretty solid indictment on the whole "minimum wage is protecting poor people" idea.
People not being carbon copy automatons have actual contexts and preferences. Maybe they value being independent more than a minimum wage. Maybe they do their math and come to the conclusion that averaged over a longer time, it's actually a pretty good wage. Maybe the CEO was a shitty driver in his first day (should we stop him from learning then?). Maybe some are going through a rough spot and want to make rent money, and damn whatever an accountant would say their "hourly wage" is. I'm betting most just get better, even if they occasionally go through a bad day.
But steamroll this to fit with "minimum wage", and in absolutely all the contexts above you have unemployed people.
If becoming homeless was the alternative, I'd also do whatever job I have to.
So in my opinion, this mostly just shows us that productivity in general is so high and automation works so well that we honestly don't need a healthy chunk of our fellow citizens. That's why they are forced to compete for even the shittiest jobs. Now the question is, what do we do with them?
So dehumanising the way you talk about these people. We definitely need YOU, right?
Maybe I should just log off HN for today.
That said, it was not my intention to judge people based on their work merit. I am merely pointing out that our society would continue to function even if let's say 20% of all people were permanently unemployed. So please don't shoot the messenger.
And no, most of society doesn't care whether I do what I do or not. If my finances allow it, I might even opt to voluntarily become part of the "not needed = permanently unemployed" group and spend more time with my family instead of working.
Comparative advantage is a thing. Lower work cost enough, and ideally lower other living wage floors like NIMBYsm, and things should settle to a decent enough level. Which we can supplement with a very low level UBI when we can afford it.
But the current system is not just discouraging - it's forbidding unproductive people from working.
Also NIMBYism manifests as a wage floor, but keeping the wrong sort of people out is the cause and money’s not gonna solve that.
Finally, from everything I’ve read UBI is already affordable. Especially when you replace welfare and the all of the bookkeeping/gate keeping costs associated with ensure not a single dollar is ever “abused”.
It sounds more like labor is being artificially broken to deter people from asking for the value of their labor over accepting wage work.
If Uber were a service to organize and empower workers by allowing them to set their own prices, how many do you think would continue working for less than minimum wage?
You talk like people have a wealth of options and are just choosing to work below minimum wage.
Things are hard out there. Really hard. Folks are struggling.
If every single worker said "I will never work for below $x," you wouldn't need to set the minimum wage to $x by law - nobody would be employed at below $x. The whole reason for a law is that people are, in fact, willing to take jobs below minimum wage on occasion.
Therefore the argument that a minimum wage law is good for poor workers does not rest on the idea that such a law matches their individual revealed preferences, and it takes into account that the law prevents them from being offered jobs which they would occasionally be willing to take.
Engage with the actual argument for a minimum wage law, please, not some obviously false straw man.
It's unfair because the companies take advantage of the fact the worker probably does not, or even can not, understand how much income they take home.
My partner delivered pizzas for years. We bought them a newer car for safety. They drove it to death for the giant pizza chain. Carrying their own non-commercial vehicle insurance which really wouldn't cover them for commercial use. Paid personal health insurance on the ACA marketplace. Bought their own gas. The restaurant had a shady scheme to keep a portion of their credit card tips in many situations, by adjusting their hourly pay down when they had good tips.
It was quite a battle for my partner to grasp how our family was paying to deliver pizzas, instead of getting paid for it. After work they were too exhausted to keep enough records and do spreadsheets to find their actual P&L. They had just done this job forever, invisibly outsourcing the company's operating costs into their own households.
Friends who have driven rideshare have had similar experiences. They get baited in by the illusion of income, and maybe make good money at first under incentive programs. Then the rideshare company cancels or reduces incentives, changes prices, in non obvious ways, they're stuck with the same expenses but lower, unpredictable income, subject to the latest project manager trying to optimize profit away from the driver.
They figure that they’re already paying for these things so the marginal cost HAVE to be small, right?
Why do you insist that employees are so stupid they cannot even calculate their income?
Unfortunately the only lever we have in this area is minimum wage.
Now, average wage? Sure, lots of people would be willing to work below average wage but nobody is "willing" to be the bottom of anything. People are forced to take minimum wage because of the power dynamic between workers and providers. When you are desperate to the point your livelihood is on the line, you don't get to be picky with what is on offer.
We both agree with this, but we come to different conclusions :)
My point is that minimum wage helps those that are already in a moderately good situation, or at least less desperate. Why? Because they managed to get a job for minimum wage.
There are many others that can't do that, and a good slice of them can't do that exactly because of the enforce performance floor created by the minimum wage.
I've had this illustrated to me rather vividly one evening when I was cleaning out an apartment. A homeless dude was going through the stuff that was thrown out and was sorting old kitchenware. And I mean really old, not in a good way. It was dark, and the monetary value of what he was getting was probably in very low single digits. And yet he was willing to do that.
I've spent some hours pondering why is this guy sorting half broken plates in the dark instead of washing cars for 10x the income. That's when I realized minimum wage is evil. Not just "suboptimum" or "imperfect", but evil. Because it targets precisely those that are in the worst possible position and exiles them away from society. If you're not worth at least $X per hour for somebody, you're worthless.
I disagree with that.