When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the US (bloomberg.com)

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When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the US (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on Monday January 23, 2017 @06:00AM from the the-story-of-their-lives dept.

A feature report on Bloomberg today illustrates the lives of several Uber drivers, who find shelter in car parking at nights when it's too pricey and tiring to go home. An excerpt from the story: In Chicago, Walter Laquian Howard sleeps most nights at the "Uber Terminal." "I left my job thinking this would work, and it's getting harder and harder," Howard said. "They have to understand that some of us have decided to make this a full-time career." Howard has been parking and sleeping at the 7-Eleven four to five nights a week since March 2015, when he began leasing a car from Uber and needed to work more hours to make his minimum payments. Now that it's gotten cold, he wakes up every three hours to turn on the heater. He's rarely alone. Most nights, two to three other ride-hailing drivers sleep in cars parked next to his. It's safe, he said, and the employees let the drivers use the restroom. Howard has gotten to know the convenience store's staff -- Daddy-O and Uncle Mike -- over the past two years while driving for this global ride-hailing gargantuan, valued at $69 billion. "These guys have become my extended family," said Howard, 53. "It's my second home. We have this joke that I'm the resident. I keep asking them: 'Hey, did my mail come in yet?'"

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America! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 06:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

America! Fuck yeah!
1. Re:America! by cayenne8 · 2017-01-23 07:49 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Well, to be fair...not every job out there is meant to be a full time, "real" job that you earn your full living from....
  I mean, uber is just a side money job, that's it. I mean, should I pay a living wage to the kid down he block to mow my lawn or rake leaves...or baby site my kid, and throw in full blown benefits too?
  I know I"m moving closer and closer to the "get off my lawn" crowd, but please tell me, I missed it..when did things change an EVERY job available became one where you were supposed to make a living from and have a career?
  I mean, when did burger flipping become a "real job" instead of something teens did in high school?
  
  --
  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
2. Re:America! by smooth+wombat · 2017-01-23 08:20 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  when did things change an EVERY job available became one where you were supposed to make a living from and have a career?
  
  Uber advertised the median salary in New York for Uber drivers was $90K per year while in San Francisco the median was $74K per year. People then went to work for Uber based on those advertisements.
  
  You're not implying that Uber lied when telling people they could have a full-time, good paying job driving people around like is done in every other cab company, are you?
  
  --
  We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
3. Re:America! by Pfhorrest · 2017-01-23 09:17 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I mean, when did burger flipping become a "real job" instead of something teens did in high school?
  When jobs on that pay scale became the only kinds of jobs that an enormous fraction of the populous can get (and having a job working for someone else became necessary for survival because everything everywhere is owned by someone else so you either work for whoever will hire you or die).
  
  --
  -Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
  "I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
4. Re:America! by Whorhay · 2017-01-23 10:33 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  That would qualify as a social safety net, though obviously isn't a cash handout.
5. Re:America! by AK+Marc · 2017-01-23 11:05 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Find me a union contract that wasn't signed by management. Every complaint on unions could be levied on the executives that signed the contracts. Unions were a reaction to the abuses by employers. The employers brought about every "evil" of unions themselves. Then blame the victims.
  
  --
  Learn to love Alaska
Welcome to the future of capitalism by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 06:02 · Score: 1, Insightful

The end game is near: the 1% will have everything, and you will have the clothes on your back, if you're lucky.
1. Re:Welcome to the future of capitalism by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 07:22 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  And they have 99% of the new ideas, provide 99% of the funding to develop new stuff, own/run most of the private infrastructure, oh they also include almost every doctor and lawyer, execs of most medium to large business, hell even a lot of the more senior IT/engineering positions especially in dual income households
  The 1% (that is about 3.5 million people) means an income of somewhere above $250k-300k after taxes. It goes up if you count households and not people but the effect is close to the same.
  If you go by net worth, then it is like $2.5M. The list changes a little because you dump some of the young (35) high income types but pick up many more people nearing retirement, along with a bunch of small business owners and farmers.
  I like to wander around private colleges where liberal arts majors are spouting off about the 1% and point out that their parents probably qualify for the club.
2. Re:Welcome to the future of capitalism by XXongo · 2017-01-23 07:39 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  And they have 99% of the new ideas, .
  No, actually they don't. Some of the 1% did get there by work, but most of them got there by inheriting money. They don't have any ideas; they don't need to have any ideas. They can buy ideas. The world is full of people with ideas, but most of them don't have the resources to do anything with them.
  
  provide 99% of the funding to develop new stuff, own/run most of the private infrastructure,
  Yeah, that's the thing. They control all the funding, so if you have an idea you want to commercialize, you are pretty much guaranteed that you'll have to sell it to somebody with cash. And they own the infrastructure. One way or the other, you end up paying them.
Regular Taxi Service fears.. by foxalopex · 2017-01-23 06:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

Interesting article, it pretty much explains why regular taxi service employees are so against Uber. When you have a competitor that undercuts the service so much that you need to live out of your car in a parking lot, it's somewhat hard to make a living from it.
1. Re:Regular Taxi Service fears.. by aaarrrgggh · 2017-01-23 07:23 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Some people just don't get math, and they pay a price for it. Some people that do get the basic math just don't have the critical thinking skills on how to review the problem.
  
  Typical car salesman con: how much can you afford per month.
leasing a car from Uber sounds like the company st by Joe_Dragon · 2017-01-23 06:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

leasing a car from Uber sounds like the company store days of the past where they lock you into the job and when the work slows down / something bad happens your on the hook to make the company full and you are not even an W2 worker.
Basic income by djinn6 · 2017-01-23 06:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
This is why we need basic income. Nobody should have to live like that, especially people who are motivated and actively looking for more work.

As a society, we have 3 options:
1. 1. Ignore the problem as more and more people end up jobless, homeless, in the hospital or worse.
2. 2. Impose minimum wage regulation, which doesn't fix the problem and makes the jobs disappear instead.
3. 3. Give everyone what they need to live.
Now which one is it going to be?
1. Re:Basic income by Nidi62 · 2017-01-23 06:21 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  This is why we need basic income. Nobody should have to live like that, especially people who are motivated and actively looking for more work.
  He chose to quit the job he was currently in and drive for Uber instead. His biggest mistake is leasing a car from Uber. To be fair, Uber is in trouble currently for not meeting the advertised terms and conditions of the leases and it could be argued he was misled into believing he could easily pay off the lease at the rate they promised. However, you really shouldn't be driving for Uber unless you have your own car. And if he had his own car, he would have been better off keeping his original job and using Uber as a side job for extra cash. Of course, Uber nothing more than an illegal cab company exploiting poorer or disadvantaged people as a cheap labor force and skimming everything they can off the top.
  
  --
  The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
2. Re:Basic income by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 06:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  How does basic income solve any problems long term? Won`t all prices just simply adjust due to market forces and we are back to square 1?
  Example: Rent in a rich nice area of town is $2000/month. Right now only lawers and doctors can afford that.
  Universal income comes in and gives everybody $5000/month. Now pretty much everybody can afford those apartments. There is an increase in demand but no increase in supply. So the monthly rent jumps from $2000 to $7000/month. Poor people can once again not afford those apartments.
3. Re: Basic income by Ichijo · 2017-01-23 07:08 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  With a basic income, the consequence of failure will no longer be debt and homelessness, but there will always be an economic incentive to succeed.
  And you're correct that a basic income will reward stupid decisions, which means it will also eliminate a big part of the risk of starting a new business, and that would be a very good thing for the economy.
  
  --
  Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
4. Re:Basic income by Paco103 · 2017-01-23 07:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  It's pretty simple. You can't make the UBI be comfortable for the 99%. It should be "enough to survive", not $5000/month. Switzerland tried that with a $75K year minimum and it was shot down at the polls in overwhelming numbers. That is way too much money, and the fact that until you find a job that exceeds that you get no benefit means very few people would have incentive to work. Even if I do make more than that, why would I work 40 hour weeks for 48+ weeks a year for a mere few thousand dollars extra? I sure wouldn't.
  But let's adjust that, lets give everyone the poverty level. Sure, maybe you can afford rent in a studio, or have a room mate. Maybe you can eat cheap, but you can't buy anything of luxury. Yeah, some people will take that one bedroom studio, ramen, and a bag of pot and an World of Warcraft subscription. Fine, they're out of the way and not committing crime, they weren't motivated to start with and arguably provide little value to society, and now they're out of the way and not resorting to crime for 'easy money'.
  But single mom Jane can now afford to go to school and just work part time. Poor orphan kid can go to school when he turns 18, instead of just being dumped on the streets to figure out life on his own because he aged out of the social care for children. Abused uber driver can afford to quit and get a better job. Incredibly smart but poor entreprenuer can afford to take time to build out his idea and make a million dollar business. Yes, these are all hypotheticals, but Finland is testing that right now. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/universal-basic-income-finland-ubi-test-scheme-experiment-a7211241.html)
  The thing is, a family father trying to provide for his family needs to see benefit from going to work as a janitor. Not everyone can be an engineer, and lets face it at some point even that job will be replaced by automation. Now he gets that UBI, but when he goes to work he still makes his family's life better. Sure, maybe he's taxed at 50%, but he still benefits, so he does a job that nobody else wants to do.
  Let's face it, all minimum wage is is a UBI that is only applied to people lucky enough to get jobs, and it encourages companies to not offer some jobs in the first place, or try to automate them away as fast as possible. And then by requiring benefits ONLY to people working over so many hours just ensures they don't let people work over that many hours, and hire 2 people instead of 1. Is it bad to spread the wealth over 2 people instead of 1? Probably not, for the executives of the world. 10 people making $100K is arguably much better than 1 person making $1 million and 9 people starving.
  In order to get to a UBI, the first thing we have to accept is that UBI doesn't mean you get everything taken care of. It means you can survive while you try to better yourself, or you can stay out of the way. We already do this with various food stamp, rent assistance, child care credits, and scholarships, but the problem is the beurocratic overhead, stigma, and it's hard to get everything to line up to where you can actually get out of the dependency loop. Yes people do it, but can we make things better? UBI might be a bad answer. Finland will tell us soon. Right now we're stuck in a loop of doing things the way we do them because that's the way we've always done them, and that may not be the right mindset.
5. Re: Basic income by Fire_Wraith · 2017-01-23 07:22 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You're assuming that his day job was a better alternative and that he was foolish to give it up. That's a pretty big assumption.
  
  And no, Basic Income won't stop people from making bad decisions about their work, but that was never the point. With a Basic Income, he could be a complete idiot who vastly undervalues his own labor and works for $1 an hour, and still not have to worry that he'll starve. It's not about protecting you from yourself, it's about ensuring that you can survive even if you are unable to negotiate sufficient payment for your time/labor to do so.
  You could argue that someone might still be an idiot and blow their Basic Income on strippers and drugs/booze, and then starve because they didn't have any money left for food, but there is NOTHING short of 100% state control that completely protect someone from their own idiocy.
6. Re:Basic income by Pfhorrest · 2017-01-23 09:48 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  the fact that until you find a job that exceeds that you get no benefit
  This is not true, or shouldn't be and doesn't need to be true.
  Let's say we set the basic income to 50% the mean wage (which would be about $25k/year basic income, or a little over $2k/mo), and fund it by a 50% tax on all incomes (which is more than offset by the basic income for about 75% of the populace who currently fall below that mean income). A homeless with no income thus suddenly has a free income of about $2k/mo. But every nominal dollar they earn on top of that, they still get to keep 50 cents of it. If they get a full time minimum wage job, that amounts to over $600/mo extra. If they get a full time median-wage job (around $25k), that amounts to around $1000/mo extra. On top of the basic income. By the time they're working a full-time mean-wage job (around $50k), they're making twice as much as the basic income, after basic income and the taxes they pay to fund it are factored in (and the basic income and the taxes they pay to fund it exactly cancel out in that case). And even at that point, there is still motive to continue working; if they make twice that again, they're still going to end up with yet another extra $1000/mo or so (compared to the mean income) after taxes and basic income are accounted for.
  If you were to make the basic income something more like $1000/mo, which is barely enough to survive off of in many places (that's slightly more than what my destitute mother's SSI pays), or about 25% the mean income (or half the median income), and fund that with a 25% additional income tax, then instead people would be able to keep 75 cents out of every dollar they earn, on top of their basic income.
  In any case, you'd have to set the basic income up in some kind of pants-on-head retarded way (like the way current welfare payments like SSI are set up) in order for it to not pay off to work unless you can get a job paying more than the basic income pays. Any sane way of doing it would provide incentive to work more at any income level. Yes, even the people making a millions per year: if the choice is between doing something that beings in another million of which you get to keep half or three-quarters or whatever, or not doing that and getting nothing at all, which do you think people are going to choose?
  
  --
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London Too by monkeyxpress · 2017-01-23 06:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

I live in central London and we have a similar situation with food delivery bike riders. A couple have a very organised camp setup at a local church park. Another sleeps every morning at my wife's gym (where I presume he has discovered a membership is far cheaper than rent). I don't think I've ever seen a situation where there were so may people working yet homeless. There was a story in the paper recently about a guy who got a job at a pub that opened till 3am, and would then wonder around until one of the train stations opened at 5am so he could go in and sleep.
I just cannot see how this situation can continue. I don't think I could personally stand visiting the big empty homes of rich people to deliver them overpriced takeaways every night, while knowing that I'll never be able to buy a home of my own anywhere on the wages I'm earning. At some point surely these people will realise they outnumber the rich they are delivering meals for, and something is going to happen?
the cognitive dissonance between hype and reality. by nimbius · 2017-01-23 06:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

marketing: our billion dollar business idea is to empower the gig economy with a system that frees them from the shackles of the traditional labour paradigm by allowing drivers to work their own hours on their own terms. the government hates us because we're revolutionary disruptors of traditional capitalism
Reality: live out of a parking lot, subsist on slurpees and hotdogs, work more hours than you ever imagined, get sick, die somewhere conveniently outside any media scrutiny of your employe...er..i mean, app.

--
Good people go to bed earlier.
Re:I don't even like Uber but by fiannaFailMan · 2017-01-23 06:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

"I left my job thinking this would work, and it's getting harder and harder," Howard said. "They have to understand that some of us have decided to make this a full-time career." Howard
Yeah, fuck you. The world doesn't owe you anything and even Uber's own ad campaigns bend over backwards to emphasize that this is supposed to be a side gig to make some extra money.
No, fuck you. It doesn't matter if Uber insist that it's supposed to be a side gig. If they're willing to let people work full time then they should be willing to pay full time wages. If someone's working 40 hours per week then they shouldn't be sleeping in their car out of exhaustion because they're struggling to pay their bills. Nobody who works full time should live in poverty. Period.
I can't believe that so many people have been conditioned into thinking that poverty is something that's okay to inflict on people for making a non-glamorous career choice. If a business can't afford to pay its workers enough to get by on, it shouldn't be in business.

--
Drill baby drill - on Mars
"They" don't have to understand anything by rsilvergun · 2017-01-23 06:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm always amazed when I hear stuff like this. People really believe that other people will treat them right when a) it's not in their interests and b) they're not being forced.

When I tell people I'm a socialist one of the responses is: "Well, are you gonna force people?". Yes. Yes I am. This is civilization. You don't get to say 'no' to civilization. Just like you don't get to say no to the polio vaccine. That's because your actions do not happen in a vacuum. They don't just hurt you, they hurt me too.

So yeah, I'm gonna force Uber to pay a living wage or go out of business. I'm gonna force everyone to give everyone else health care (aka "single payer"). Because that's civilization. We're all humans. We're all valuable. Yes, everybody gets an ever-loving Gold Star. We all earned the right to a good life simply by being born human.

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1. Re:"They" don't have to understand anything by anegg · 2017-01-23 06:43 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  How will you decide what to force people to do? The economy is a very complex ecosystem. The risk of unintended consequences are high when tinkering with complex systems. I'm amazed when people who force a corporation to do something get upset when the corporation adapts to what they were forced to do in a manner apparently not envisioned by those forcing actions on the corporation. For example, forcing a corporation to pay more taxes, then being surprised when the corporation passes on the cost to customers.
  I thought that the "grand experiment" in centrally-planned economies showed that central planning not only couldn't outcompete economies with distributed planning, but that centrally-planned economies couldn't even provide a reasonable living environment for the citizens. If you are going to force people to do things the way that you think they should be done, I hope you have a very good way to understand the consequences of what you are forcing on people.
  I can't tell if you are trolling or not... is that a I here?
Great news everyone: Prof Farnsworth by LeftCoastThinker · 2017-01-23 06:24 · Score: 1, Insightful

Well, there's great news for this guy. In a few years, autonomous cars will eliminate the need for drivers, and this guy won't have a car to sleep in, or an income at all. The moral to this story is if you want to make a good living, get a marketable skill that takes some skill to develop and is in demand. Since virtually every adult in the US can drive, driving services were never going to be a cash cow. Machinist, electrician, elevator repair, commercial equipment service and repair, etc. are the way to go. To a certain degree, this is the sad result of not teaching even one class in high school on basic applied economics (supply and demand, markets etc.)

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Re:I don't even like Uber but by CastrTroy · 2017-01-23 06:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

I'm sorry, but there are certain jobs in society that really aren't meant for a person to fully support themselves. Even moreso when the person is trying to support themselves and their family. Delivering the local newspaper was great job when I was 12 and I wanted to buy some hockey cards and music CDs. It's not a job that really requires any skills, and even if you are doing it full time, I couldn't see it being a job that's likely to pay a living wage.
Same with the job I had flipping burgers at McDonald's. I was making minimum wage and even if I was working full time, there's no way that I really deserved to make a living wage in that job. Again, it required very little skill and they didn't really expect much from me other than to show up and make some hamburgers. But that's fine because I was in highschool and just wanted some money for CDs, computer games, and going out to the movies.
Theses were great jobs to get me used to working, and if they weren't allowed to pay me such low wages, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to work at all. Especially in the year 2016. They will just get a robot to do your job if it becomes too expensive for a person to do it.
If you want to make a living wage, be prepared to get some real skills. You don't deserve money for doing nothing, or for doing a job that requires almost no skills.

--

Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Re:Doesn't sound like any Uber drivers I know or h by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2017-01-23 06:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

They all seem grateful for the work
Well, not starving is high on people's lists. The fact that they are grateful for the work cuts against the 'they don't need the money' argument you're about to make.
But yes, children in sweatshops were also grateful for the work.

>Only work as much as they want
Which may include over 40 hours a week. After all, most people convince themselves they want to do something if they are forced into the situation. And people tend to want to work over starve.

--
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Sure it can by rsilvergun · 2017-01-23 06:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

look at India, South America and large parts of China. And that's just the places we pay attention to. This is nothing new and nothing surprising. For most of the world's 6 billion inhabitants this is they way things are and always have been. The best thing you can do it get over the surprise that it's like this while keeping that feeling of disgust. Don't let the fact that these situations are so far outside the norm for you let you turn away from the truth in disbelief. It's like that old quote: The greatest trick the devil ever did was convincing the world he didn't exists.

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Through democracy, careful planning by rsilvergun · 2017-01-23 06:59 · Score: 1, Insightful

and constant adjustments. Here's what makes it so hard for folks to accept real socialism: It's not a system of beliefs it's a system of government. It's a means, not an end. The practical consequences are that a socialist admits when they're wrong and makes constant adjustments and improvements. It's basically the scientific method applied to politics with a bit of Socrates "I know that I know nothing" philosophy mixed in. The short version of all that is Progresivism. Always making progress (and twirling, twirling towards freedom!).

The trouble with all that is branding. When the right wing start a debate they've got simple answers to complex problems. They're always the wrong answers, because if a problem has a simple answer then, well, by definition it's not complex. But those simple answers feel good, sound good, and just got a Demagogue elected President of the United States...

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Re:I don't even like Uber but by cryptizard · 2017-01-23 06:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

Hate to break it to you but most jobs, by the numbers, require "almost no skills." 40% of US workers are unskilled. Should they all starve to death?
Re:I don't even like Uber but by The-Ixian · 2017-01-23 07:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

It seems like what you are saying is "some jobs aren't meant to pay for someone's subsistence"
My question is "what jobs are those?"
Are they "unskilled" jobs? If so, are you suggesting that there needs to remain a majority of people without proper education in order to have an "unskilled" work force so that you can go to the grocery store on Sunday or out to eat in the evening?
What happens if everybody has an education and is competing on the same level for "skilled" jobs and nobody wants to do the "unskilled" jobs? What happens if we don't have anyone to man the register or pick your food from a field? Wouldn't you say those jobs are necessary?
Is this a reason why we shouldn't make education easily accessible to all?
It seems to me that "unskilled" workers are necessary in order to provide a quality of life for the workers in "skilled" jobs. So why don't those "unskilled" workers, people who wake up every day and GO TO WORK in a job that they probably HATE, not deserve to be able to live a reasonably comfortable life?
I certainly appreciate the ability to order food that arrives at my doorstep or a cab/uber that can take me to where I want to go.
I am guessing that you appreciate those things too.... but you somehow don't feel that the people doing those jobs deserve a wage that will allow them to live at or above the poverty line....

--
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Re:Hours-of-Service Safety Regulations uber does n by SeaFox · 2017-01-23 07:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

Hours-of-Service Safety Regulations uber does not give a dam about them but what will happen when an uber driver falls asleep at the wheel and does big damage?
Nothing will happen. Mr Driver will be held responsible just like any Joe Sixpack that fell asleep behind the wheel. If he says anything about being an Uber driver:
1) Uber will bring up their "independent contractor" (not our employee/liability) business plan.
2) His insurance will bring up their "you're not covered under your personal policy if you're acting as a ride sharing/taxi-for-hire service" clause... and more of them have this nowadays.
The loser will be victims in the accident.
Re:I don't even like Uber but by Ogive17 · 2017-01-23 07:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

Unfortunately not everyone has the means to go out and get those skills required to earn a decent salary.

I agree with the GP, if you're willing to put 40 hours in of work per week, it should earn you a basic living wage in the area you're in. I don't really care what skill level the job is, it's a job and someone's working hard to complete it. Society needs people of all skill levels to function.

Minimum wage has not kept up with inflation. There are thousands of manufacturing jobs open in my area that go unfilled because they cannot find the people who want to work hard, starting at $10/hr without benefits. That's almost $2/hr above minimum wage. Even in this region where living expenses are very low, good luck paying your bills on $20k/yr.

--
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Re:I don't even like Uber but by ccguy · 2017-01-23 07:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

I was making minimum wage and even if I was working full time, there's no way that I really deserved to make a living wage in that job. Again, it required very little skill

You keep talking about skill as it if was the only thing that mattered. Well, time matters, too. If you spend 1/3 of your life doing something for someone else then you should be able to make a living from it. It's just not a question of how hard it is, it's a question of how much time you spend doing it. If it order to pay flip burgers a living wage they have to raise the price of the burgers then so be it.
Re:I don't even like Uber but by Fire_Wraith · 2017-01-23 07:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

And what do you propose should happen to those who don't have the skills, and can't acquire them? What about those who try, but just aren't good enough? There are presently some 3 million or so drivers in the U.S., between taxis, Uber, delivery trucks, and long haul trucks. What should happen to them as demand for their previously valuable skill dwindles to the point they can't support themselves anymore, or wind up unemployed en masse when the vehicles can drive themselves? There are some 3.6 million fast food employees in the U.S. - what about them?

Perhaps you think they should learn to program, or become auto mechanics, or HVAC technicians, or some other job that remains in demand. Some of them may well be able to, but is there really immediate demand for several million more of them? Did it ever occur to you that some of them might like to learn those skills, but lack the time and money it takes to do so? Education isn't cheap, and it's getting significantly more expensive by the year. And worse, you might find after you complete it that you can't get a job in that field, because the competition is high, and others are simply better at it than you are.

So what then? Because I'm going to hazard a guess that you're not suggesting that we fund a robust social safety net with programs to make sure those people don't starve, or some form of universal basic income.
Re:Showers by Oswald+McWeany · 2017-01-23 07:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yet another reason why they're just like taxis and taxi drivers.

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"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Re:I don't even like Uber but by generic_screenname · 2017-01-23 07:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

This desperation is what happened when factories left the Midwest. The good jobs are gone for the unskilled. The remaining jobs need training that the unskilled can't afford. This is the guy's best option right now. If he could just stop being poor, he would. His best option is to sleep in a parking lot where he could freeze to death in a Chicago winter. Think about how bad things must be to have that as your best available option. This man isn't the only one making this choice. There is a bigger problem, and telling people to just stop being poor won't solve the bigger problem.
Re:I don't even like Uber but by DavidMZ · 2017-01-23 07:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

No, nobody should starve to death, or left without healthcare, or without drinking water, or not given the chance to get quality education at an affordable price.
Maybe we should push for things like Universal Basic Income, Single Payer Healthcare System, Free Education, and stop privatizing utilities?
Re: I don't even like Uber but by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 08:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

It wasn't his best option. He left his job for a lie and hope that this fraud would be better.
Re:I don't even like Uber but by ghoul · 2017-01-23 08:07 · Score: 1, Insightful

Americans dont value education enough. In India maids will skip a meal in order to buy a text book for their kids. Instead the poor in the US would much rather buy videogames than spend time studying at the library. Life is not hard enough in the USA. It needs to get harder. The period from 50s to 70s where you could lead a middle class life on working class skills is never coming back. It was an anomaly created by the WW2 where all the other countries had destroyed economies and depended on US manufacturing and US could export its way to wealth. Now all countries are recovered from WW2/colonialism. Its an equal competition and working class skills will not get you a middle class lifestyle.

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**Life is too short to be serious**
Re:I don't even like Uber but by Obfuscant · 2017-01-23 08:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

Well, time matters, too.
No, not really. You can spend 80 hours per week doing a job that returns $1000 in value to the company you work for, but you can't expect them to just hand you $1500 for your time. You have to do something that results in the money you get paid, it truly does not grow on trees.

If it order to pay flip burgers a living wage they have to raise the price of the burgers then so be it.
And when do you expect to get the raise that will allow you go buy the now more expensive product? Someone making $15/hr already who gets no raise when the minimum goes to $15/hr will be in serious trouble as the prices for everything that come from current minimum wage workers goes up to cover your largesse. I'm glad you have lots of excess cash now that you can spend on the more expensive products, but most people do not.
Re:It's your choice by jeff4747 · 2017-01-23 08:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

If you're sinking all your time into a low paying job instead of an education then that's your problem.
Because such an education costs nothing, and magically pays all your bills. And people don't need things like "food" or "shelter" while getting an education. Also, if you make the "right" choice and get a STEM education, there aren't more STEM graduates than entry-level job openings. (This site claims 1.55 graduates per job opening)
Oh wait, absolutely none of that is true. Huh. Almost like reality doesn't quite fit your model.
Re:Progress by jeff4747 · 2017-01-23 08:44 · Score: 3, Insightful

There are about 1.5 STEM graduates for every entry-level STEM job opening in the US.
Even making the "right" choice and getting an education is no guarantee of a successful future. No matter how much parents push it as a magic bullet.
Re:I don't even like Uber but by fiannaFailMan · 2017-01-23 09:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

It IS a company's job to pay a living wage to its workers. We had this discussion during the civil war. Slavery is now illegal. It's a moral issue. In any case there's also the economic argument that impoverishing the middle class (who drive economic growth through consumption) is a bit of a silly idea.

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Drill baby drill - on Mars
Re:Yea, America's fault. Wait, lets blame Trump! by Cederic · 2017-01-23 11:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

We know that half the population is not intelligent and we know that modern marketing techniques can subvert intelligent, aware and thoughtful people. Ergo half the population is very vulnerable to exploitation by malicious people and companies that have resources.
You may consider those victims a cash cow. I personally feel that it's appropriate that society provides them with a level of protection, including preventing cunts like Uber from building a massively valuable company by breaking the law and exploiting people that were unfortunate enough to trust them.
Conning people out of money is illegal in most countries. It's fraud or comes under other legislation. Why do you think that conning people out of their labour is perfectly just fine?