Posted on 06/26/2024 10:50:19 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Drivers are not helped by wage mandates is Seattle and New York. And customers complain higher prices and cold food.
It’s a perfect trifecta of complaints.
Neither drivers nor customers are happy with misguided politicians attempting to help driver get better pay.
It’s losses all around as Delivery Drivers Got Higher Wages. Now They’re Getting Fewer Orders.
The delivery companies—whose businesses are built on gig workers they don’t employ full- time—say they can only afford to pay so many workers under the two cities’ latest pay standards. The cities want the companies to pay couriers a minimum hourly wage based on the time they spend delivering orders and reward the most efficient workers. New York City now requires that the companies pay couriers at least $19.56 per hour before tips, up from an average of $5.39 per hour before its rules went into effect in December.
Uber Eats’ UBER orders in Seattle fell 45% last quarter from the same period a year earlier after the company imposed a $4.99 fee on each order to cover the city’s new pay requirements. Demand also cooled in New York City, Uber and DoorDash DASH.
Consumers already pay the apps a service fee and delivery fee, in addition to tipping workers. For some, the latest app fees were the last straw.
Seattle-based researcher Ro Singh was hooked on ordering in several times a week until the city adopted its pay measure in January. App prices “became absolutely nuts,” he said, after adding varying delivery fees in addition to tipping. He started picking up the food himself.
“It’s like double the price to order a $20 burrito now” compared with the pickup price, he said. “This is insane.”
Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said the company has had to cut 25% of the delivery drivers who previously worked for the app in New York City. “So far, regulation has definitely hurt the people that it’s supposed to protect,” Khosrowshahi said last month on a call with analysts.
Shuai Zhang, the owner of Poprice, an Asian street-food restaurant in New York City, says his delivery sales are a third of what they were before the changes. Drivers who once picked up from his restaurant are now asking him for jobs. He hired two of them.
Fewer workers delivering for the apps means it takes longer to pick up orders. Customers are complaining about deliveries arriving cold and soggy, Zhang said. To make up for lost sales, he has started working as a restaurant consultant.
Seattle driver Gary Lardizabal said he makes less money now despite working more hours. Breakfast and afternoon-snack delivery orders have disappeared. Smaller deliveries don’t make sense because of the new $4.99 fee, he said.
Drivers because they are making less money
Restaurants because they are losing business
Customers because of slower deliveries, cold food, and higher prices
The city loses too. Seattle collects a sales tax of 3.85 percent.
New York City says the plan is working. The only thing I can come up with is reduced traffic.
Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson is pushing to reverse the new earnings standard after complaints from drivers, restaurants and consumers, though she wants to ensure that workers still make the city’s minimum hourly wage before tips.
What a hoot.
Not having learned anything from this, Nelson still wants to mandate minimum wages. I wonder what miserable failure she will concoct next.
Meanwhile, please note A $5 Meal Deal at McDonalds, Price Wars Also at Starbucks, Walmart, Target
Still more signs of consumer exhaustion are evident in tactics by McDonalds, Starbucks, and other chains’ attempts to woo back customers who said no more to rising prices.
In case you missed it, please see my June 20 post, Breadsticks at Olive Garden Highlight Financial Strain on America’s Middle Class
Traffic at Olive Garden is up 3.9 percent but but same store sales are down 1.5 percent. Are people filling up on unlimited breadsticks? Drinking less wine?
Repeating comments I made in the McDonalds post, all of the articles in this post have one thing in common. They are all about discretionary spending.
Consumers are tapped out and that is the first, if not only thing consumers can cut back on.
“There is Nothing good in life that cannot be turned to crap when Government gets involved” L.Star
Age and price controls always fail. These idiots don’t know economics or history. Somebody dig up dick Nixon.
It's just a lazy fee.
Age - Wage
Leftards are financial lunatics. They never learn. Look how the mandatory $20 minimum wage has had negative consequences for California. Facts be damned as these leftards plow ahead with their failed agendas.
Not a single social engineer on the planet has any idea what he’s doing.
Given today’s world, I don’t trust the safety of any prepared food that is delivered, especially by a 3rd party service. Food in sealed containers from a grocery store? Fine. Otherwise, nope. Especially if said delivery service finds out I am not a leftist and they are.
“Hi, I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.”
“I have to say, People, go get your own damn food!”
Especially at Walmart.....those people they have in the store filling the online orders are ALWAYS in the way.
When will they learn? There’s no such thing as ‘minimum wage’ when there’s a job nobody will do for the wage offered. The market fixes the rate. If it doesn’t work, for worker or consumer, then it stops.
Maybe everyone should be a blacksmith - then complain they don’t have work or income. Or, move on to something that is in demand, with people willing to pay - the market will sort it out.
This whole idea of ‘mandating a standard of living’ by wage manipulation never works.
Of course, the REAL reason they try is to run on a ‘I care platform’ - to get elected. So it’s really about power and money at the expense of low income folks.
Moral of the story...
governments should not be involved in running businesses or mandating anything from businesses or even suggesting anything to businesses. Safety regulations are okay, though that can go too far too.
Those in Gub’mint think they can run the Economy. Bah!!
In order to run an economy, one MUST micromanage what each entity does with such money, want or asset there is or might be. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
If you want something that “They” havent assigned you, the whole shebang will totter, and if you act on that want, it will fall. Fast or slow, it will fall.
Drivers will stop servicing those customers who are lousy tippers, which will mean fewer unproductive trips and higher average wages.
This “researcher” orders a $20 burrito “several times” a week?
What’s in a $20 burrito?
And why and how is this doofus ordering any at all?
Yeah, “l’m dumb” without saying so.
I said $35 for a cheese pizza was the problem. Get off your butt and go to the cafe to pick it up yourself!!
G D millenials anyway.
Did this guy say that he was buying $20.00 burritos and paying the previous fees and tipping to have it brought to him?
“”“It’s like double the price to order a $20 burrito now” compared with the pickup price, he said. “This is insane.””””
I wonder what he spends on eating every month?
The customers should not have to bid to get delivery, if you don’t want the job then quit.
The agenda is not failed if the losers keep “electing” them. Don’t forget, the DNC base = 10% of US population with IQ < 85. tying actions to consequences is not strong suit with these folks.
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