(Image: Uber Eats)
A Seattle City Council committee will begin new debate Thursday on Seattle’s minimum wage for app-based delivery workers just months after it was implemented.
The council’s economic development committee chaired by Council President Sara Nelson will hear reports on the impact of the minimum wage requirements approved by the council in 2022 but put into effect this year.
According to an analysis completed for Nelson, network companies like Uber “raised delivery fees and service fees, and some added a Seattle-specific fee,” and “fewer customer orders and longer wait times for workers to receive offers, impacting worker earnings” have been reported.
The council committee will also hear from Drive Forward Seattle, an industry group formed by “activist rideshare drivers” to advocate for delivery workers. The group maintains compensation to delivery workers has dropped somewhere between 11% and 50% compared to 2021 inflation-adjusted levels as both earnings and tips have reportedly plunged due to fewer orders and increased fees demanded by the network operators.
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Seattle’s so-called “PayUp” legislation requires app-based workers be paid a minimum wage plus expenses and tips, and was hoped to create “more transparency in employment terms and how payments are split between workers and app-based companies,” while protecting “flexibility and transparency in employment issues for app-based workers.” It also established a 5 per trip minimum payout to delivery workers.
Advocates said the minimum wage would be the first of its kind in the nation and eliminate “sub-minimum wages” for gig workers by guaranteeing a minimum payment amount for “engaged time” and “engaged miles” as the city’s 40,000 or so drivers and couriers make deliveries for the likes of DoorDash, Instacart, and Uber Eats.
Industry representatives threatened they would raise delivery costs in Seattle as much as $5 per order in response to the legislation. Some are coming close to following through on the threat. While it isn’t a funny situation for drivers or for the restaurants who increasingly depend on the services, food delivery costs in Seattle have reached nearly comical levels.
While Drive Forward reports dipping demand, the appetite for meal delivery in Seattle has mostly powered through the increased costs — for now. Where the new council will set the needle on a protections for the delivery worker industry remains to be seen.
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My cousin does doordash and ubereats deliveries to pay the bills while she’s in school. She’s making like half of what she did before this law…there’s fewer orders, and people aren’t leaving tips anymore either because they assume the law is making more $$ for people or because the fees are already so high they don’t want to shell out more money.
Well I sure hope they don’t strip vulnerable workers of their minimum wage guarantee instead of holding massive corporations to account for being greedy scum. If they side with big business, it wouldn’t be a great look, assuming they’re interested in generating any further popularity or rebutting critics who say they’re in the pocket of Seattle’s biggest businesses.
Honestly, if Seattle is serious about wanting to limit accidents, stop lights/signs being run, and generally reduce vehicle congestion in the city, we should be taxing said delivery services more (or allowing the corporations to add fees, etc).
There are better ways to help those who truly require delivery services due to incapacity. These delivery services are increasing pollution, providing a substitute for wealthy tech workers to not walk their own ass to the stores/eateries.
Studies show a living minimum wage in the US is $26 per hour, however you want to people to live on what? Council, we want to reduce crime, stop open drug use and vandalism as well as create a clean and beautiful Seattle, but that won’t happen when workers can’t live in the city or EAT!
Studies show this is a living wage where …? Anywhere in the US? What study is this? Are you suggesting that life in Omaha and Seattle costs the same? You sure about that? Be accurate, or lose cred.
I’d argue that the baseline of food going up so much only exacerbated the difficulty of getting this to work. Speaking for myself, our household basically gave up ordering in because of expense before this came down. No matter what the cut is to DoorDash, et al, it was simply too much and no amount of clawback on how the delivery folks get paid is gonna change that.
I mean, the bottom line is that the delivery drivers need to get paid a living wage that actually accounts for their expenses doing delivery with their own vehicle, otherwise it’s just churn n burn through labor to meet the demand of consumers who simply don’t want to think about the labor part of the equation on getting their food to their door.
I imagine this would all go a lot more smoothly if there was something like UBI where The State is basically eating the cost of providing a baseline of living so that games around elasticity of demand isn’t the only thing and it is anything but graceful. But we’re a nation that didn’t build any additional hospital capacity from 2020 to recently, so go figure on how a nation that basically hates itself.
Progressives are missing the point entirely, which is this: these apps were NEVER supposed to be for full time employment! It was supposed to be a way to earn a few extra bucks delivering something if it was on the way while you were doing errands.
An adult American driving to a restaurant, picking up a sandwich, and driving it to another adult American? There is simply not enough economic value in that transaction to make a full time job out of it.
The actual enterprises themselves can not sustain themselves on it being a piecemeal opportunistic employment though and tapping on ‘how it should be’ doesn’t reflect ‘how it is’ in those enterprises being buttressed by VC subsidy and then rent seeking from The State to be even close viable.
They weren’t supposed to be the thing they are now is meaningless.
I’m inclined to agree. Most customers just aren’t willing to pay enough for food delivery to make it consistently profitable for the driver AND the restaurant AND a third-party app. Sure, workers deserve fair compensation for their time and effort. More power to them! But food delivery is a side hustle at best and trying to make a living from it is probably futile no matter how it’s structured.
Thank you… and I pointed out above the risk it poses* with these drivers being in a hurry and the added pollution where healthy people could and should otherwise walk to stores. I actually would prefer we outlaw them within city limits.
*Admittedly don’t have data, but hypothesize
I hear your point about the safety risks with drivers being in a hurry and the added pollution, but outlawing them is NOT the solution. I am someone with disability who RELIES on grocery delivery (I don’t do restaurant meal delivery). We need to have options for disabled people to have food delivered. Honestly, we need more than what we have now. But I hear you that they can improve the way it is structured.
Bingo… there are some jobs that were never meant to be a career… They only even exist because they make a service or product obtainable by more people… as soon as whatever it is, be it a delivery or a fast food burger, becomes a luxury people will cut back on getting it… that this isn’t working as planned was entirely predictable.
The companies in question are also not likely to be profitable any time soon, if ever.
I order from Palermo’s directly. Free delivery. No app surcharges.
So strange. If you don’t like the delivery fees, then – and hear me out – you can go pick the food up yourself… you know like we did only a few short years ago before everyone got lazy… Or order direct from the restaurant or business, so they get more of the money you’re paying. These delivery companies take a percentage from these places.
And before the ‘what about those who cannot’ then there can be programs that assist them with that – or do what they were doing only a few short years ago as well. There were services then.
It’s really disappointing to have a city council that is so receptive and empathetic to the talking points of big tech and real estate lobbyists, but so disconnected and unconcerned for the wellbeing of the people who live in Seattle. So many of the arguments I hear from Council leaders on this fee echo word for word the lobbyist talking points. Part time jobs are not exempt from minimum wage laws in any other industry. Why should food service delivery be any different. Tech entitlement just doesn’t want to pay the actual cost of things.