Comment by swatow | Hacker News Reader

Comment by swatow | Hacker News Reader

This article struck me as illogical and out of touch.

...a more recent study commissioned by Uber reported that the typical Uber X and Uber Black drivers make about $19 an hour after paying Uber’s 20 percent commission ... yet that hasn’t diminished the appeal of driving for Uber.

Does the author really not realize that $19 an hour would be appealing to a very large proportion of the population?

The author also doesn't show how the federal income tax is fundamentally different to what an employee would pay, and yet the tone of the article suggests that the amount of income tax paid is a special burden for Uber drivers, e.g. ...there can be a big difference between the fares from driving for Uber, say $62,000, and what’s left over after paying Uber’s commission, your gas, car maintenance, health and car insurance expenses, and your federal income and self-employment taxes, or about $27,600. And you may still have to pay state and local income taxes, which might add up to another thousand dollars or so. I thought only the crazy libertarian right talked about "what's left over after federal (and state and local!) taxes".

Finally the author makes a ridiculous comparison with actual employees of Uber: Things would be different if you worked for Uber Technologies. You would receive a 401(k) plan, gym reimbursement, nine paid company holidays, full medical/dental/visions package and an unlimited vacation policy. You might even get snacks in Uber’s lunchroom. How is this relevant? Is the author going to get the Uber drivers jobs as professors at GWU, since the mean tech nerds won't pay them software engineer salaries?

According to Uber's underlying research (http://www.scribd.com/doc/253410228/An-Analysis-of-the-Labor... , page 23), $19 an hour is just the revenue they get after Uber's cut, and does not include gasoline, depreciation/lease fees, insurance etc, which makes it a useless number.

I agree that the article was poorly written, and using the $19 an hour figure to make a point, then debunking the $19 an hour figure later to make a different point, was a poor way to structure the argument. The final take home pay after federal tax was quoted as 27,600, which strikes me as still an attractive wage for many people. Of course if you had the option to become a software engineer at Uber (or a Professor at GMU) then you should probably take that option. But that's precisely why the article is out of touch. People who drive for Uber don't have these options.

median taxi driver pay is $32k, and most of them are actually employees of the taxi company so don't have to deal with the car stuff.

Also assuming the $50,000 figure (after ubers cut) is the equivalent yearly pay to the $19 hourly pay, then that requires working 50 hours per week, 52 weeks per year.

For anyone in the UK wanting to compare it to a normal permanent position, that takehome is equivalent to a ~£21-22k a year job (pre tax), but you'd be working 56 hours a week (47 weeks per year) and have no employment guarantees or pension. To be required to work this long in your job, you'd need to explicitly agree to it (and they can't make it a requirement of your employment or treat you differently if you opt out) [0]

[0] https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours/weekly-maxim...

> The author also doesn't show how the federal income tax is fundamentally different to what an employee would pay

Not disagreeing. For anyone wondering what the fundamental differences are:

1) As an independent contractor you are responsible for 100% of your FICA tax (social security and medicare tax). For most people the tax due is 15% of your income. This is in addition to your income tax. In an employee/employer relationship the employer pays for half of this. It can be a big shock to people who are hit with this for the first time.

2) If you're an employee, your employer is automatically withholding your income tax payments for you and sending them in to the IRS at a regular interval. As an independent contractor you need to be doing this yourself. If you wait until the end of the year and pay as one lump sum you'll likely be penalized.

>If you wait until the end of the year and pay as one lump sum you'll likely be penalized.

In general, you don't have to pay estimated quarterly taxes in your first year of earning self-employment income. And after you file taxes for your first year, the IRS will inform you that you need to start paying estimated taxes. So it's not super-easy to accidentally get a penalty for this.

>As an independent contractor you are responsible for 100% of your FICA tax (social security and medicare tax).

You can deduct half of the self-employment tax from the gross income on your income tax. So, for example, if your income tax rate were 25%, you would effectively pay 87.5% of FICA, not 100%. There may also be deductions on state taxes.

Well the way I read it was the author poo poos $19 an hour because Uber originally claimed their drivers were making " $74,000 a year in San Francisco". $19/hour isn't great compared to $74,000 a year.

I got that, but even in that context, it doesn't make sense to ask why Uber is still an attractive option when they only offer $19 an hour, when clearly that would be an attractive option to many people.

The gist of the article is that it isn't really even $19 an hour though with taxes and expenses.

It's difficult to have this discussion with you when you make the same confusing changes to the argument as the author does in the article.

I'm well aware that the article went on to debunk the $19 an hour figure. But in that particular paragraph, the author did specifically claim that it was surprising that people would still find a $19 an hour job attractive. It was this claim I was discussing.

I'm just struggling to see how the author says any $19 an hour job is unattractive. It reads as a comparison, that it is unattractive compared to the inflated figures Uber previously provided. "Uber’s no longer making those lofty claims"...

It's worth considering: $74K in the city that's just about the # 1 most expensive to live in ... I wonder how that compares with other cities. Of course, Uber drivers are going to be mostly in large cities since that's where most customers will be, but $74K in SF and $74K in Oklahoma City are two very different things.

People extol all kinds of principles till those principles come to bite them (I like immigration, but I don't like H1Bs, etc.). So, everyone's whipping boy/girl is technology today. Of course they are not going to talk negative things about the ills of higher ed. How undergraduates are used as free labor, or the excessive hazing, etc.

I'm not a particular fan of Uber the tech company, but at the same time, a fair comparison would be to see how Uber compares to working for a regular taxi company. Just as it would be fair to compare Uber the tech co vs. Twitter or Amazon the tech company --not the warehouse operations. amazon's warehouse operations should be compared against other warehouse operations, and if they come up short, castigate them.

But hey, people like reading catchy titles and like consuming things which reinforce their biases.

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