New Massachusetts driver min. pay rules *do not* incorporate utilization rate (UR). UR is being blamed for NYC driver "lockouts", not per mile & minute rates. TLC needs to drop UR to end lockouts ASAP
I hope TLC pulls up there big boy pants and make the right decision as a regulator and end the UR so ppl can make money living in this city where for a studio apartment is $2500 - 3500 a month let alone a 2 or 3 bedroom. If non regulatory ppl can read the tea leaves what's the deal with the commissioner? Makes me wonder what/who his allegiance to if any. Crazy how simple something is to rectify but made difficult by the commissioner(s) not making the decision. Unless I'm missing something. 🤷🏾♂️
original formula was enacted to please yellows and put a restriction on expansion of uber, not to ensure fair driver wages, in fact the earnings went down significantly except for those driving wavs. Interestingly, i have heard of yellow business thriving in Midtown these days.
Also I would like to add, delivery drivers for Uber Eats and DoorDash achieved a minimum pay in January and they also are experiencing extreme lock outs and they don’t have such utilization rates.
Im not too knowledgeable about the other states but from what i have heard about California with Prop 22, many drivers describe it as a disaster.
Don't know too much about what's going on with the food delivery industry and lockouts, but if order volumes went down because the min. pay was too high that could also influence market dynamics. Believed that happened in Seattle, where the order volume plummeted.
Best way to conceptually think about this is if there is no financial incentive or penalty to "lockout" drivers, Uber and Lyft won't lockout drivers from simply accessing their apps. Now, if you can access the app and don't get a call for 2 hours, that still means market is oversaturated with too much supply (drivers, vehicles) vs. the underlying demand. Classic too many drivers, chasing too few trips. Best way to guard against that on a "First Principles" basis is to control the underlying supply (genesis of taxi medallion system) and then regulate that supply to prevent abuse (i.e., lease caps).
In California, as in other places outside NYC, they can't regulate supply and if trip demand is soft, earnings are going to go down.
He brought up a great point, and the reason behind the “Planner” and lockouts on the Eats side of Uber in NYC is the same oversaturation of drivers, literally days after they passed the $26 an hour minimun pay Uber started locking them out, here is an example of what was going on: A delivery driver would deliver a $5 order and wouldn’t received another one for the rest of that hour being online, Uber was coming out of pocket with the extra $21. In my opinion every single State that has achieved these minimum pays through court decisions will get there eventually their markets are simply not as over saturated just yet and Uber will start implementing the same practices, lockouts etc, let’s not be fooled by the Idea App companies are OKAY with these minimum pay rules because they are not, even with supply controls if UR was to be dropped then Uber will claim the minimum pay is too high and will have to lockout drivers because there is too many of them already, all drivers waitlisted will end up signing up with the apps and it will take at least 2 years for natural attrition to play its role but the cycle will just continue to repeat over and over, we seem so far away from a definite solution.
"Uber was coming out of pocket with the extra $21". Why does Uber have to come out of pocket? This implies a sort of UR requirement, that Uber / DoorDash must pay for idle time.
New York City has implemented a new rule that requires delivery platforms like Uber Eats to choose 1 of 2 approaches to minimum earnings for each pay period.
The City’s Alternative Method is $32.60/hour of trip time. The City’s Standard Method of payment is $19.56/hour of trip time + additional earnings. Additional earnings are calculated based on factors that include the number of trips completed and the number of available couriers in a given pay period. Uber Eats will default to the Standard Method of payment.
Signup bonuses and tips are not included in minimum earnings. Your tips will continue to be passed on to you in full.
The method of payment will not change during a pay period and is determined after the pay period is complete.
If you earn less than the guaranteed minimum rate, you’ll automatically receive the difference by the end of the day every Thursday. You may receive two payments. The first payment would be any increase needed to achieve the guaranteed minimum rate. The second payment would be for additional earnings."
This is from Uber’s website, apologize for the $26/hr that came from something i was reading on a different article, point is Delivery drivers get locked out and are force to used the planners because of Uber’s inability to keep them all busy, imagine a ton of delivery drivers making one delivery per hour that didn’t account for the minimum pay amount that automatically forces Uber to pay them the difference for every hour they received at least one order that didn’t accounted at least fir the minimum pay rate. And no they don’t have no UR but i know many delivery workers that every week they receive an extra payment for the difference on all the hours they were sent orders that did not pay at least the minimum hourly rate.
The $19.56 / hr also includes the time they are online waiting for orders, which seems to be where the problem is, it does seem like some sort of UR but labeled as an hourly thing, if other states have used this same structure it would be a matter of time for lockouts everywhere, hopefully they did not emulated this structure in other places.
Yup, that's essentially idle time compensation it appears. To be fair to Uber / DoorDash there is no way they could make that work with with all their delivery drivers. Everyone would game that system to get paid. Not feasible.
Got it, interesting background. Key difference here vs. NYC TLC driving is the driver supply cannot be controlled effectively (i.e., anyone can buy or rent a bike, you don't need a commercial driver's license). With NYC TLC you need a TLC-plated vehicle to do Uber and Lyft, as you know. There are only a finite amount of TLC Plates and taxi medallions, the City can manage this and creates a barrier to entry. In food delivery the issue is likely massive oversaturation in a marketplace where there is no other mechanism to control supply and ensure all currently active drivers are paid a decent wage. There are only so many orders to go around.
For TLC personal attrition in this business is a very very common thing and they understand that people leaves the business like nothing and of course they haven’t figured out where they will be getting the money they will loose if they stop issuing new licenses, another point is that TLC schools would not survive just of “license renewal course” but that’s a topic for another day, point is don’t they think that if they would’ve controlled driver supply when it was needed the industry would’ve been stable and less people would be interested in exiting the industry because every 2-3 years something beyond their control happens?
This causes more traffic. I've noticed more TLC-plated cars during Uber's scheduled hours. Just like years ago, everyone shows up after 6 pm. Whoever came up with that formula needs a slap on the head
TLC needs to do something asap because this is unsustainable at this point in time. Drivers are spending 12-18hours on the road and at the same time looking at up to 50% LESS money
I hope TLC pulls up there big boy pants and make the right decision as a regulator and end the UR so ppl can make money living in this city where for a studio apartment is $2500 - 3500 a month let alone a 2 or 3 bedroom. If non regulatory ppl can read the tea leaves what's the deal with the commissioner? Makes me wonder what/who his allegiance to if any. Crazy how simple something is to rectify but made difficult by the commissioner(s) not making the decision. Unless I'm missing something. 🤷🏾♂️
Well put! 👍
TLC needs to take leadership for once and care about the drivers what's the point of the UR if its not helping the drivers they need to act ASAP
original formula was enacted to please yellows and put a restriction on expansion of uber, not to ensure fair driver wages, in fact the earnings went down significantly except for those driving wavs. Interestingly, i have heard of yellow business thriving in Midtown these days.
Also I would like to add, delivery drivers for Uber Eats and DoorDash achieved a minimum pay in January and they also are experiencing extreme lock outs and they don’t have such utilization rates.
Im not too knowledgeable about the other states but from what i have heard about California with Prop 22, many drivers describe it as a disaster.
Don't know too much about what's going on with the food delivery industry and lockouts, but if order volumes went down because the min. pay was too high that could also influence market dynamics. Believed that happened in Seattle, where the order volume plummeted.
Best way to conceptually think about this is if there is no financial incentive or penalty to "lockout" drivers, Uber and Lyft won't lockout drivers from simply accessing their apps. Now, if you can access the app and don't get a call for 2 hours, that still means market is oversaturated with too much supply (drivers, vehicles) vs. the underlying demand. Classic too many drivers, chasing too few trips. Best way to guard against that on a "First Principles" basis is to control the underlying supply (genesis of taxi medallion system) and then regulate that supply to prevent abuse (i.e., lease caps).
In California, as in other places outside NYC, they can't regulate supply and if trip demand is soft, earnings are going to go down.
He brought up a great point, and the reason behind the “Planner” and lockouts on the Eats side of Uber in NYC is the same oversaturation of drivers, literally days after they passed the $26 an hour minimun pay Uber started locking them out, here is an example of what was going on: A delivery driver would deliver a $5 order and wouldn’t received another one for the rest of that hour being online, Uber was coming out of pocket with the extra $21. In my opinion every single State that has achieved these minimum pays through court decisions will get there eventually their markets are simply not as over saturated just yet and Uber will start implementing the same practices, lockouts etc, let’s not be fooled by the Idea App companies are OKAY with these minimum pay rules because they are not, even with supply controls if UR was to be dropped then Uber will claim the minimum pay is too high and will have to lockout drivers because there is too many of them already, all drivers waitlisted will end up signing up with the apps and it will take at least 2 years for natural attrition to play its role but the cycle will just continue to repeat over and over, we seem so far away from a definite solution.
"Uber was coming out of pocket with the extra $21". Why does Uber have to come out of pocket? This implies a sort of UR requirement, that Uber / DoorDash must pay for idle time.
“How are minimum earnings calculated?
New York City has implemented a new rule that requires delivery platforms like Uber Eats to choose 1 of 2 approaches to minimum earnings for each pay period.
The City’s Alternative Method is $32.60/hour of trip time. The City’s Standard Method of payment is $19.56/hour of trip time + additional earnings. Additional earnings are calculated based on factors that include the number of trips completed and the number of available couriers in a given pay period. Uber Eats will default to the Standard Method of payment.
Signup bonuses and tips are not included in minimum earnings. Your tips will continue to be passed on to you in full.
The method of payment will not change during a pay period and is determined after the pay period is complete.
If you earn less than the guaranteed minimum rate, you’ll automatically receive the difference by the end of the day every Thursday. You may receive two payments. The first payment would be any increase needed to achieve the guaranteed minimum rate. The second payment would be for additional earnings."
This is from Uber’s website, apologize for the $26/hr that came from something i was reading on a different article, point is Delivery drivers get locked out and are force to used the planners because of Uber’s inability to keep them all busy, imagine a ton of delivery drivers making one delivery per hour that didn’t account for the minimum pay amount that automatically forces Uber to pay them the difference for every hour they received at least one order that didn’t accounted at least fir the minimum pay rate. And no they don’t have no UR but i know many delivery workers that every week they receive an extra payment for the difference on all the hours they were sent orders that did not pay at least the minimum hourly rate.
The $19.56 / hr also includes the time they are online waiting for orders, which seems to be where the problem is, it does seem like some sort of UR but labeled as an hourly thing, if other states have used this same structure it would be a matter of time for lockouts everywhere, hopefully they did not emulated this structure in other places.
Yup, that's essentially idle time compensation it appears. To be fair to Uber / DoorDash there is no way they could make that work with with all their delivery drivers. Everyone would game that system to get paid. Not feasible.
Got it, interesting background. Key difference here vs. NYC TLC driving is the driver supply cannot be controlled effectively (i.e., anyone can buy or rent a bike, you don't need a commercial driver's license). With NYC TLC you need a TLC-plated vehicle to do Uber and Lyft, as you know. There are only a finite amount of TLC Plates and taxi medallions, the City can manage this and creates a barrier to entry. In food delivery the issue is likely massive oversaturation in a marketplace where there is no other mechanism to control supply and ensure all currently active drivers are paid a decent wage. There are only so many orders to go around.
For TLC personal attrition in this business is a very very common thing and they understand that people leaves the business like nothing and of course they haven’t figured out where they will be getting the money they will loose if they stop issuing new licenses, another point is that TLC schools would not survive just of “license renewal course” but that’s a topic for another day, point is don’t they think that if they would’ve controlled driver supply when it was needed the industry would’ve been stable and less people would be interested in exiting the industry because every 2-3 years something beyond their control happens?
This causes more traffic. I've noticed more TLC-plated cars during Uber's scheduled hours. Just like years ago, everyone shows up after 6 pm. Whoever came up with that formula needs a slap on the head
TLC needs to do something asap because this is unsustainable at this point in time. Drivers are spending 12-18hours on the road and at the same time looking at up to 50% LESS money