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Uber Drivers and Other Gig Economy Workers Are Earning Half What They Did Five Years Ago (recode.net)

Posted by BeauHD on from the cheaper-by-the-dozen dept.

According to a new study by the JPMorgan Chase Instittue, drivers who transport people via apps (e.g. Uber, Lyft, Uber Eats, Postmates) made 53 percent less in 2017 than they did in 2013. Recode reports: The average monthly payments to those who worked for a transportation app in a given month declined to $783 from $1,469. Meanwhile, people working for leasing apps -- Airbnb, Turo, Parklee and other apps that let you rent assets like your home, car or parking space -- saw their incomes from those platforms rise 69 percent to $1,736 on average.

This is happening as online gig work has become more popular, thanks in large part to the growth in the number of transportation jobs. The share of the working population that has participated in the online gig economy at any point in a year rose from less than 2 percent in 2013 to nearly 5 percent in 2018. There are a number of potential reasons why the average pay for gig economy drivers has gone down. It could be any or all of the below, according to JPMorgan: drivers on average are working fewer hours; demand hasn't increased to meet the increased number of drivers; trip prices have fallen; or platforms are paying drivers lower rates.

2 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Well, Duh! by BlueStrat · · Score: 0, Troll

    Every government is doing their damnedest to kill "gig" jobs, what else did they expect?

    Strat

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    1. Re:Well, Duh! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

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      I use PhotoShop daily!

      I have a hearing loss in one ear, so my audio will always be suspect. I use a Zoom H2 audio recorder with a pop filter 12" away from my mouth, Audacity to clean up and normalize the audio, and sync the audio to the video and apply a "voice enhancement" eq to the audio in the video editor.

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      I take public transit. A local bus take me down the street to pick up the express bus, the express bus drops me off in Palo Alto, and a local bus take me down the street to my job. An hour each way. Driving through Palo Alto during rush hour is insane. Since I work in government I.T., I start work at 7:00AM.

      For a final project in Small Group Communications, my four Vietnamese classmates appointed me to do all the work and be the speaker because I was white. So I did all the work and spoke in front of the class. Our instructor, a black woman, gave me all their credit for the assignment and forced them to retake the class. They screamed "white privilige" all the way to administration and their complaint landed on deaf ears. They couldn't prove that they did anything to merit a grade and cheerleading from the back of the room doesn't count.

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      --
      Star Wars Holiday Santa Yoda (Funko POP! #277) Found At Box Lunch