Uber Pays Below Minimum Wage
You’ve heard of Uber drivers making huge livings, $55,000 or more. Perhaps. In their earlier days. If you drive with lots of stimulants, likely beyond mere caffeine.
Using the Fed’s figure, my 200 miles of driving ‘cost’ closer to $100, or more than I took home.
Econ Uber
One economic lesson Uber offers? It’s a thinly-veiled secret: Uber pays less than minimum wage.
And this is not a bad thing.
How do they pay less? Last Saturday, I was “online” — driving or available — for 9 hours and 34 minutes. I drove 16 ‘trips’ for 101 miles. I pocketed $96.46. Now your quick math may say that I earned just over $10 / hour.
But that car doesn’t just breath air. It’s continuously thirsty. And it wears out — fast.
Remember, I had to drive nearly twice those 101 miles. First, to get to the riders, then to deliver them. Uber only pays once you’ve picked up the passengers; not to get to them. Believe me, Uber’s app isn’t afraid to ask you to drive 15 miles — on a turnpike — to pick up a guest. Who may then go less than a couple miles. Or, it may dump you in an area saturated with drivers, the wise choice is to move to an area with more riders and fewer drivers.
Thus, on a mileage-heavy day, you may put $20 in gas to earn $100 in fees. With gas costs alone, my $96 Saturday looks more like $76. (And I haven’t yet fed Ed!)
Of course, some days, the pickup drives aren’t that far. Especially in an urban area like Cleveland they’ll route you to closer passengers. However, in a congested area it’s often your time, not mileage, that adds up. On a busy day — like a Browns game or the RNC — I can easily spend 15 minutes trying to go a mile to reach a rider.
So, point two: Uber doesn’t pay for down time. I’ve had one Saturday where I was busy nearly all day. But most days you spend a lot of time waiting for the next rider. Plus you get no paid breaks. Need to stop to pee or even put gas in the car? No pay.
Lastly, even when they sit, vehicles cost money! They age. They rust. Every time they move, the parts wear.
The feds say that a vehicle costs $.54 per mile for business use. Using that figure, my 200 miles of driving ‘cost’ closer to $100, or more than I took
home. We can debate the $.54 price point. Maybe it’s closer to twenty cents a mile.
If so, my Saturday netted me about $55 pay plus a $20 loan against my vehicle’s trade-in value.* Or about $5.80 an hour.
But I’m willing to do this. And it’s this kind of thinking that will save America.
Ed Jones is bootstrapping a Statewide Experiment in Customized Teen Learning, leads the Hackable High Schools movement, and once redesigned the world’s most complex software/electronics system. He works to finish the book Hacking High School, Making School Work for All Teens, and lives & works (usually) in Appalachian Ohio.
*The day’s pay breakdown is actually even worse for me (no fault of the sharing economy); that story for a later day.
