The crux of the interpretation is what constitutes an hour of work. Once the ride starts with a paying client in the car, the hourly earnings are easily above

The crux of the interpretation is what constitutes an hour of work. Once the ride starts with a paying client in the car, the hourly earnings are easily above minimum wage. But what about the time spent logged into the app waiting for a ride? If you take a standpoint that's friendly to Uber, that is not billable time - the driver could potentially be working in other capacity (including doing gigs for direct and indirect competitors, like Lyft, Postmates, TaskRabbit, etc.) If you take a standpoint that's employee-friendly, this is similar to a store register clerk being by the register with no customers in the store - they're still present to perform their duties when necessary and therefore must be compensated.