Posted on 12/05/2018 9:39:12 AM PST by lowbridge
Uber, Lyft, Via, and Gett/Juno must pay on-demand drivers of their services a minimum of $17.22 an hour after expenses starting in mid-January 2019, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) announced Dec. 4. The commission claimed this will result in an average nearly $10,000 rise in earnings for 96% of drivers. About 80,000 people regularly drive for ride-sharing firms.
The commission set a formula that will result in a gross hourly rate of up to $28 an hour to cover the average per-mile expenses drivers incur so that a driver’s effective freelance wage should net out to $17.22 an hour. It also factors in trips that lead outside of New York City and lack a passenger on the return leg.
The formula gets calculated per trip, and involves a “utilization” factor, which measures how many times per hour a driver has a passenger. The TLC said its utilization factor is designed to provide incentives to not have as many idle drivers on the road, which in turn reduces congestion. The formula also adds a bonus for shared rides to make sure drivers who accept those trips aren’t shortchanged.
The TLC noted that wage matches the $15-an-hour minimum wage in New York City plus the extra costs incurred by freelancers in taxes and to compensate for contractors not receiving paid time off. A TLC study found that 85% of drivers currently don’t earn an effective $15-an-hour wage, with expenses factored in.
(Excerpt) Read more at fortune.com ...
I wonder if they are making any money.
Once again, New York steps in to try to strangle free enterprise.
Because people are too stupid to accept employment that doesn’t pay enough. Must have government tell us we need more
"...$17.22 per hour plus expenses..."
Will it? Or will the resulting price increases to riders reduce demand and price half the Uber/Lyft drivers out of the market, leaving them unemployed?
I wonder if this will boost the prices of taxi medallions.
If only this policy had been instituted in time to save Michael Cohen, who was overleveraged when the value of his taxi medallions fell. /S
That's not how Economics works, you twits.
Well, it was nice having Uber as an option when in NYC until the democrats ruined it. Back to dirty, poorly maintained cabs with drivers who are maniacs.
No Uber is hemorrhaging money like a cash hemophiliac... they have ZERo prayer at profitability without autonomous vehicles which, in reality, are at least 2 decades away.
The fact gullible investors keep giving them cash is mind boggling
200 a day like Jim Rockford.
That’s what I thought.
I would hope investors would realize the risk, but it may turn and make mucho money...or not.
Thanks, HJ.
Taxi companies are powerful in NYC apparently.
Uber is a leftist company increasing running up against leftist giverments.
I wonder if either will be converted?
Under what law can they dictate wages? Is that part of the licensing policy?
The fact investors are into autonomous vehicles is mind-boggling.
They won’t survive First Contact with the American tort bar.
To put their losses into context, their last quarter they lost $1.1 BILLION
Up from a ~ 900 Million in losses in an earlier quarter this year.
There is absolutely NO PATH to profitability without autonomous vehicles, and the reality about those,.... not the hype or investor spin is, they are DECADES away. The tech is being grossly oversold.
I assume holders of the medallions were the people pushing for this rule.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.