NYC Votes To Set Minimum Pay For Uber, Lyft Drivers (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Tuesday, New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission voted to set a minimum pay rate for Uber, Lyft, and other on-demand ride-hailing drivers. The new rate will be set at $17.22 after expenses, or $26.51 per hour gross. New York is believed to be the first city in the nation to implement such a pay floor. Four months ago, the Big Apple also imposed a cap on the number of such vehicles in the city. The Independent Drivers Guild, a local affiliate of the Machinists Union, advocated for the change. Meanwhile, Uber has already put out a statement saying that increased driver earnings "will lead to higher than necessary fare increases" and that the new rules do not adequately take into account "incentives or bonuses forcing companies to raise rates even higher." "Today we brought desperately needed relief to 80,000 working families. All workers deserve the protection of a fair, livable wage and we are proud to be setting the new bar for contractor workers' rights in America," Jim Conigliaro, Jr., founder of the Independent Drivers Guild, said in a statement.

Comments

NYC Votes To Kill Uber, Lyft Drivers

[sexconker]

Uber and Lyft are dead if their drivers actually get paid. Currently, drivers for both Uber and Lyft make negative money if they have to pay for fuel or vehicle maintenance.

Re: NYC Votes To Kill Uber, Lyft Drivers

[Iwastheone]

These 'ride sharing' "apps" are skirting all local cab companies requirements, such as having fingerprinting/approval by local town codes to ensure no one with a felony are allowed to pick up area residents. Uber's plan is to destroy all cab companies worldwide hoping that auto-drive cars appear, then all the drivers will be out of work. Uber's bleeding investor money, about $1.50 for every $2.50 that they take in. Unless a driver is quite methodical and determines all costs long term, the drivers barely make enough money to be profitable. Uber constantly needs more investor cash yearly, and IMO, won't survive the next year without more billions. Auto-driving cars are at least a decade away, ones that can safely handle all of the conditions humans can mostly handle.

Many cab drivers have been forced to find alternate work, it's just not profitable enough to risk a late model vehicle, as required, to earn a living wage. These are interesting times (an ancient Chinese curse), and the entire cab industry has been broken.

Higher than necessary pay incnreases?

[Bradmont]

In other words, "paying our workers a reasonable wage is not necessary."

Re:Higher than necessary pay incnreases?

[omnichad]

Limos don't follow taxi laws either. Calling it "ride sharing" doesn't help their case, but being a private hire vehicle not hailed from the street makes quite a bit of difference with the way most of the laws are written.

Why lie about this?

[SuperKendall]

Currently, drivers for both Uber and Lyft make negative money

How do we all know you are lying? Two ways:

1) What idiot would work for a day for negative money? Yes there remains tons of Lyft and Uber drivers. Therefore, you are lying.

2) Every Uber or Lyft driver I have talked to (and I talk to all of them) make a fair amount of money, most of them love the job because it's a way they can make extra money and they get to choose when and how often to work. They can easily control for higher rates by choosing to work mostly during peak times where surge pricing nets them a lot more. Therefore, you are lying.

Drivers make not make much at times but all of them are savvy and now how to work the system so they are doing much better than "negative money".

If you want something approaching negative money, try being the owner of.a once valuable taxi license...

Re:Why lie about this?

[sexconker]

1: There are plenty of idiots who work for negative money. They do so because they don't realize that they're paying for the increased maintenance and wear on their car. The cost is externalized to the point that they don't realize it exists.

2: They are stupid and / or lying. Go ahead and look up any internet article on the subject. Further, taxi medallions are hugely profitable. Buying into one after Uber / Lyft came into the scene and eschewed all the laws would have been moronic and a huge loss. But actual owners of those medallions are still making obscene amounts of money.

The only way to "work the system" is to get a ton of tips (Uber didn't even let people tip via the app for the longest time, and were shamed into allowing it), or drive for both Uber and Lyft at the same time and pickup double / fake fares when Uber / Lyft are handing out free rides to customers. This was a huge scam recently, and it was reported even here on Slashdot.

As usual, you don't know shit. Now I see why that AC troll goes around posting all that shit about you.

Re: Why lie about this?

[j-beda]

So unless they setup as an LLC, register a business name, and register for a DOT number that's on the vehicle, how can they write that off as a business expense. If they don't, they are NOT as business and are not employees of Uber / Lyft (well at least not historically in most places).

Standard "self-employed" IRS forms (Schedule C as I recall) allow one to account for business use of a car.

Here is what H&R block says about it: https://www.hrblock.com/tax-ce...

To deduct vehicle expenses, you can use standard mileage or actual expenses. For either method, keep a log of the miles you drive for your business. Both methods allow self-employed tax deductions for tolls and parking fees.

If you use the standard mileage rate, you can only deduct the mileage at a standard rate. For 2017, the rate is $0.535.

Over the past few decades, with three different vehicles, of various ages (new through 14 years of age), I have had a couple of years where the actual expenses have come close to the standard mileage rate, but usually the standard rate is higher (and easier to track). Usually for me business use of the vehicle has been under 10% of the total use, which is much less than a ride sharing vehicle would be.

Re: Why lie about this?

[torkus]

Oh AC...you so silly. But let's work out the math here.

Even just taking the start of what you wrote: You drove for 1 hour, grossed $40, netted ~$20 and are ahead of the $17 minimum in TFA.

But also, that's the write-off which typically is higher than actual cost and DOES INCLUDE the vehicle cost/depreciation/fuel/etc. The whole point of that rate per mile is the actual, total cost to be driving the vehicle. Lets break that down a bit:

For 12k miles it's $545/month.
For 24k miles it's ~$1100
For 48K miles (typical for a full time uber/lyft driver) that's $2200
Now, $2200 is your IRS approved cost write-off. If your actual costs are lower, it's more money in your pocket. Working backwards from there:

4k miles / 25mpg * $3/gal fuel = $600. This depends on your vehicle and gas prices but uses current fuel and 2016 MPG numbers. A prius will be less.
$20k - average price for a 3 year old car or ~$400/month over 5 years - actual depreciation will be *less* than this of course
$200/month insurance - varies significantly by location, but even doubled this is easily viable.
That leaves a full $1000 a month for maintenance which is overkill so your tax deductions will net you ~30% back on whatever of this you don't spend. Conservatively, that's at least a few grand in your pocket per year.

So after working all that out, you're still making $40k per year including full depreciation of the vehicle in 5 years and all maintenance/fuel.

Of course they did.

[Gamer_2k4]

So ride-sharing companies pull out of New York, and taxi companies are back in business. It's no surprise to me why they voted for this.

NY Uber and Lyft drivers

[BankRobberMBA]

I have a good friend driving for both in NYC. He is driving a 4 or 5 year old car (he bought it I think 2.5 years ago). He makes about $50,000/year driving. He has a part time restaurant job, as well.

He bought the car specifically to drive for Uber (and later started Lyft). He has been paying extra on the car. It is nearly paid off now. The car has paid for itself, including all maintenance and insurance, and gas. The money left over paid part of his rent (he only rents a room, but still pays too much). The remainder of the rent and his other expenses are covered by the restaurant gig.

In another year he will have the car free and clear and will (probably*) still be making money with it. In the meantime, he has had use of the car for a couple of years. This is not negative money.

*: Don't get me started on Uber's long-term survivability.

Re:NY Uber and Lyft drivers

[torkus]

I don't think you live in NYC...

$35k/yr definitely isn't livable in NYC, but at the same time is totally is. It takes a different approach and many people in NYC accept that (or get NYCHA housing and live for almost free).

The $17/hr minimum is considerably (+24%) higher than the NYC minimum wage of $13/hr set about a year ago.Guaranteeing that wage to someone working a highly flexible, self-directed job with effectively no boss is actually ... strange. Well, until you realize the taxi commission is working to destroy uber in NYC and get their control back.