15 ms·

Seattle approves minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers

186 points by clouddrover 6y ago

MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
I wonder if the majority of drivers think this is an improvement or not.
- daenz 6y ago
  Frankly I don't think that actually matters to the city council. If given the choice, they would rather be seen as people who fight for platitudes than people who actually have an overall positive effect but nobody notices.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    City council has recently: Outlawed the use of chemical weapons, slashed the police budget, increased funding to community programs by tens of millions of dollars, created a rent relief program for tenants during Covid, increased minimum wage, increased taxes on high earning large corporations, and more. All of these have a materially positive effect on the people of Seattle.
    - drak0n1c 6y ago
      I disagree with your assessment of "materially positive". Police response times have been dismal in my neighborhood in North Seattle, and crime has increased. The maintenance man who worked with my wife downtown was murdered by a tenant recently because there was not enough police resources to accompany the eviction of a tenant who was making violent threats. The community programs have had no noticeable effect on poverty or homelessness rates, as prosecution and drug court diversion has been discarded. I see needles most times I go for a neighborhood walk, and the children's playground is currently occupied by vagrants who are chopping down trees in our park. The minimum wage laws pushed my young brother-in-law out of full-time employment in 2019 and led to his moving out of state. Multiple local shops and restaurants have closed over the last few years because they can't keep up with rising artificially imposed costs. The new taxes on businesses and high earners has led to Amazon moving 25,000 jobs out of the city to the east side.
      - Pfhreak 6y ago
        > The community programs have had no noticeable effect on poverty or homelessness rates I'd be surprised if they did, as they were approved last week. > Police response times have been dismal in my neighborhood in North Seattle This sounds like a problem with the police dept independent of funding levels, as the funding was only reduced last week. (I also live in North Seattle, and I haven't seen data on crime increasing or decreasing. In general, I've seen lots of car prowls, but relatively low crime otherwise. > Multiple local shops and restaurants have closed over the last few years because they can't keep up with rising artificially imposed costs. This is always the way business works. If those businesses relied on exploiting laborers to make ends meet, then maybe it's better that they are being replaced with other businesses that don't? Also, from what I've seen, rising rents are much more problematic for businesses in North Seattle. > The new taxes on businesses and high earners has led to Amazon moving 25,000 jobs out of the city to the east side. I'm not sure they did. Did Amazon reduce their investment in Seattle by 25k? Or did they simply increase it by 25K outside of their core area while they also increased in their core area? The increase in taxes is also relatively recent, so there's no way that Amazon did this in response to a tax increase (as siting 25,000 people takes years of planning.)
        nickpp 6y ago
        Raising rents in Seattle are also the result of deliberate actions took by the city to discourage building.
        Pfhreak 6y ago
        Do you have some citations that this is the recent policy of the city? I agree that a decade or more ago, the city absolutely bungled their housing planning. The current city council has been, from what I've seen, trying to open up development through permitting more Accessory Dwelling Units in residential areas [1], increasing the zoning in many neighborhoods in Seattle [2]. [1] http://www.seattle.gov/opcd/ongoing-initiatives/encouraging-backyard-cottages http://www.seattle.gov/opcd/ongoing-initiatives/encouraging-... [2] https://mynorthwest.com/1311997/seattle-city-council-upzoning-mha-final-vote/ https://mynorthwest.com/1311997/seattle-city-council-upzonin...
    - triceratops 6y ago
      All the rest are fine but "Outlawed the use of chemical weapons". What?
      - Pfhreak 6y ago
        The City Council banned the ownership and use of chemical weapons and undirected crowd control munitions (e.g. blast balls) by the police dept (or their allies). The police were flooding residential areas with CS gas to the point that, at times, you couldn't see down a block. https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/06/16/seattle-council-bans-chemical-weapons-and-other-brutal-crowd-control-tactics/ https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/06/16/seattle-council-bans-...
        MH15 6y ago
        The Seattle PD continued to use chemical weapons after the ban, so there's that.
        Pfhreak 6y ago
        The mayor sued to ensure the police could still deploy indiscriminate chemical weapons.
        debian_lover 6y ago
        I guess the cops are supposed to just let the city get burned to the ground, because tear gas is bad.
    - MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
      Otherwise known as „How to ruin a city, one pinprick at a time“. Second order effects are real.
cletus 6y ago
So here's one thing I've never understood about such measures to treat drivers as employees: how do you handle drivers who drive for multiple companies at once? It's fairly well known that drivers will sign on to multiple apps and choose which rides they take. Like they don't know the destination but still. What if a does 2 rides for Uber and 1 for Lyft in an hour? Who pays the minimum wage here? Both? It seems like this would be incredibly hard to police and strengthens the argument that drivers aren't employees. EDIT: to be clear I'm not talking about, say, alternating days for Uber and Lyft. I'm talking about drivers who are signed into both and take the first that comes up. They'll also accept rides on one app while still doing a ride on another. This is really common. This is not a "multiple part-time job" scenario.
- zitterbewegung 6y ago
  Having two jobs versus one job and with a minimum wage would just have your hourly rate increase on both jobs to the minimum rate . Just because you have two jobs doesn’t mean that the law doesn’t apply . What just happens is the ride share companies have every hour a driver is working and if it falls below the minimum wage then they would have to increase it to the minimum.
  - Kiro 6y ago
    They are working both apps at the same time, picking rides from the first that pops up. I don't see how hourly rates would work with that unless they timeslot every hour to one company, which is not how it currently works.
    - zitterbewegung 6y ago
      I haven’t seen a driver that has a ride share when one is from Lyft and the other is from Uber. But that doesn’t matter because you would calculate minimum wage by taking the amount of time worked with the income and then computing the difference between the hourly rate.
      - 6y ago
lwhalen 6y ago
I wonder how long before these companies pull out of Seattle, or Washington entirely. If it's just Seattle, will they just geofence the city and not allow rides to originate or terminate there? What happens if a driver is transiting the city limits, but isn't within for a full hour - does the minimum wage get prorated, or what?
- viraptor 6y ago
  Why would they pull out? Taxis existed before Uber and others. Either a) Uber at scale can't compete with local taxi service which will return pretty quickly, (so Uber would die anyway in a long run) or b) they will be completely fine with a few tweaks around scheduling / number is drivers.
  - wgerard 6y ago
    > Taxis existed before Uber and others. To be fair, taxi service in seattle was quite awful during the pre-uber times. It was usually best to pretend they didn't exist unless you were at a location they congregated frequently (the airport, for example). Hopefully, the prompt and transparent service that came with Uber is here to stay even if the company itself isn't.
    - kenjackson 6y ago
      This is true about pre-Uber taxi service. But it has improved largely due to Uber competition. It would suck to lose Uber and Lyft, but I don’t think it would be long for a competing local service to pop up.
      - dantheman 6y ago
        Need to make sure taxis have to pay this minimum wage too... let's see how that works.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    And/or raise prices on consumers who are using the drivers who have to be paid more. That seems like a component of any solution to the issue.
rattray 6y ago
Some questions here about whether this means drivers will get paid for idle time. This Seattle Times article has clearer wording on this: > The legislation will set new per-mile and per-minute rates for drivers while they’re transporting passengers, meant to be high enough to also account for expenses and downtime. > To guarantee the minimum wage, the new rules will use a combination of per-minute and per-mile pay rates, divided by what’s known as a “utilization rate.” That figure is based on the share of drivers’ time spent with passengers in the car, rather than waiting for a ride. Other specifics include $29.90/hr gross hourly pay while driving (to target $16.39/hr total), $5 per-trip minimum. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/seattle-to-require-minimum-wage-for-uber-and-lyft-drivers https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sea...
- rattray 6y ago
  Another quote, voicing a concern I share: > the new formula incentivizes companies to keep that utilization time high when the city calculates its pay rates. That can mean the companies look for ways to have fewer drivers on the road. Personally, I'm all for legislation around minimum per-minute, per-mile, and per-trip payments. Keeps a level playing field and prevents a race to the bottom in a situation where workers can't collectively bargain. But this "utilization rate" thing definitely sounds like an overreach that's likely to have unintended/regrettable consequences. It should be up to drivers to determine if they're spending too much time waiting around, and choose to do something else with their time when that's the case (my impression is this is one of the best parts of these programs for drivers currently - it's easy to act on your opportunity cost).
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  What happens with drivers logged-in on multiple apps at the same time? Do they both pay the driver his iddle fee? Almost every driver I encountered had both apps open and would shut the other one down when accepting a ride. How does this works for medallions drivers? The poor driver who just paid 150$ for the privilege of renting a medallion car for the day. Is he getting paid when waiting for rides?
  - 6y ago
foota 6y ago
If legislation like this were adopted widely it might have a positive incentive of driving ride sharing companies towards less driving time by having passengers do more of the work, e.g., by setting up common drop off and pick up locations (similar to existing functionaity that lowers the price by having you walk a bit)
- noirbot 6y ago
  I think this brings up a problem though. By raising the cost of labor, you're more incentivized to try to make sure that labor is used efficiently. This is why, pre-Uber, it was hard to impossible to get taxis in some small towns, suburbs, or less-active parts of the city. If you're paying someone minimum wage whether they're actively driving someone for a fare or not, you can't afford to have someone on the clock out in the middle of nowhere where there's a low chance they will ever get a ride. One of the benefits of the current system is that being available to start a ride is essentially "free", both for the driver and the passenger. I've had times where I called a Lyft, and had it be someone who literally was living in the same apartment building I was in, and walked down to their car, drove out to the street, and picked me up. Presumably they were just at home, but still active in the app to take rides. This helps to expand coverage for pickups to areas where it wouldn't make sense to have a car just actively circling. Drivers have a reason to be searching for a ride near them, even if there's a low chance of it popping up. How do you solve this? We see this issue in other industries as well - food deserts are a similar issue. It's expensive to run a full grocery store, so you can only afford to put them in places where they'll see enough traffic to warrant it. But as a general culture, there's value in services that aren't economically viable on their own. Optimally, some of this would be solved with public transit or such, but that can't just be done overnight, or to everywhere it's needed, so what's the in-between?
  - Nbox9 6y ago
    Seattle doesn’t have this problem at all. You solve this problem by not enacting these rules where they don’t make sense. Seattle does have a ton of Uber drivers that work 60+ hours a week and are barely making ends meet.
dfxm12 6y ago
"the real harm here will not be to Uber," Uber said. "It is the drivers who cannot work..." The city's researchers found that drivers made an average of about $9.73 per hour. For reference, Seattle minimum wage is $16.39/hr. This appeal to employment is disconcerting, as ride sharing apps are doing their workers no favors by paying them so poorly (including the lack of benefits). When talking about jobs, especially in the US where so many benefits are tied to employment, a job with pay so low and no benefits should not be considered a good thing.
- marcusverus 6y ago
  > The city's researchers found that drivers made an average of about $9.73 per hour. Why cut the quote off in the middle of the sentence? > The city's researchers found that drivers made an average of about $9.73 per hour, while the ride-hailing companies' researcher put the number at $23.25.
  - muttled 6y ago
    I assume that the city's researchers looked at take-home divided by time available to drive and the companies probably only counted the time the drivers were actively engaged. It's why they only want to have to pay a wage when a driver is engaged: they can make them clock out in between rides.
    - wgerard 6y ago
      Actually IIRC last time I looked it was more like city researchers usually subtract depreciation on the vehicle from the earnings, which can be quite substantial (IRS rates are roughly a quarter per mile). Uber doesn't subtract that, so the rate per hour varies wildly.
    - kenjackson 6y ago
      They both said they did what you note. But they have different data sets. The companies included tips and not any delta associated with insurance. Oddly the companies would not share their data set with the city but did share it with Cornell. Just on that count alone I tend to look more favorable to the city’s numbers.
user5994461 6y ago
"Seattle's law will require drivers be paid at least 56 cents per minute and $1.33 per mile driven while transporting passengers."
- advisedwang 6y ago
  For comparison Seattle's regular taxi rates are: Fare = $2.60 + $2.70 per mile + ($0.50 per minute while speed<11mph) [1] https://www.seattle.gov/your-rights-as-a-customer/file-a-complaint/taxi-for-hire-and-tnc-complaints/taxi-fares-how-much-does-a-ride-cost https://www.seattle.gov/your-rights-as-a-customer/file-a-com... [2] https://library.municode.com/wa/seattle/codes/municipal_code?nodeId=TIT6BURE_SUBTITLE_IVNELICO_CH6.310TAFREVE_VENSTRA_6.310.530RA https://library.municode.com/wa/seattle/codes/municipal_code...
  - jiscariot 6y ago
    The "regular" taxi cab medallion cost averaged $35k in 2017 down from $200k in 2013[1] otherwise you will likely be leasing it and a car from a taxi company. If I recall, the daily buy-in is generally $90-150. So these costs should be included in the calculation. [1]http://leg.wa.gov/JTC/Documents/RFPs/RFP_TAXI_FINAL.pdf http://leg.wa.gov/JTC/Documents/RFPs/RFP_TAXI_FINAL.pdf
deleted 6y ago
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moralsupply 6y ago
https://fee.org/articles/the-eugenics-plot-of-the-minimum-wage/#:~:text=On%20that%20the%20eugenicists%20were,power%20to%20work%20for%20less https://fee.org/articles/the-eugenics-plot-of-the-minimum-wa.... > Whatever the intentions, the effects are still the same. On that the eugenicists were right. The eugenics movement, however evil its motive, understood an economic truth: the minimum wage excludes people from the job market. It takes away from marginal populations their most important power in the job market: the power to work for less. It cartelizes the labor market by allowing higher-wage groups access while excluding lower-wage groups.
- jahaja 6y ago
  For this to be true - that higher labour costs keeps people out of jobs - one must ignore the last ~70 years of Northern-European labour market.
  - AdrianB1 6y ago
    Yes, take Sweden for example: no minimum wage. Let's take Norway... no minimum wage. They both do just fine.
    - jahaja 6y ago
      What a dishonest comment. I'm very sure that you know why that is not needed in Sweden and Norway but you just manipulatively skip that part.
      - triceratops 6y ago
        For the rest of us, why aren't they needed in Sweden and Norway?
        jahaja 6y ago
        The main reasons for the lack of minimum wage laws are because of a high degree of unionization and the widespread use of collective bargaining agreements.
jahaja 6y ago
"People will lose their jobs!" This has been said about every increase in worker benefits ever. Luckily things still work out.
- ggreer 6y ago
  US labor force participation rate is at all time lows: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...
  - chickenpotpie 6y ago
    That has nothing to do with worker benefits and is completely caused by the pandemic.
    - ggreer 6y ago
      That graph is over the past 20 years. Even during post-2008 recovery, labor force participation rates decreased. Of course the pandemic is going to cause a spike, but the general trend is undeniable.[1] 1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01300001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01300001
      - jahaja 6y ago
        What's your point? We already know that high labour costs (as in a liveable wage even for so called simple jobs) doesn't necessarily cause high unemployment. Northern-European countries have proven it for ~70 years.
        ggreer 6y ago
        I'm sorry, but you're incorrect on two matters of fact. First: the EU's labor force participation rate is significantly lower than the US's (58.3% in 2019 vs 63.4%). If the US had the EU's LFPR, we'd have 13 million fewer jobs. Second: Denmark, Austria, Finland, and Sweden all lack minimum wage laws. They have other programs that benefit poor people regardless of whether they have a job or not.
maxharris 6y ago
How will Seattle respond to robotaxis?
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Hopefully Seattle will have strong public housing, basic income, and other safety nets to support a basic quality of life for every resident. Then we won't have to worry about this for every new tech advancement that pushes workers out.
  - maxharris 6y ago
    How will Seattle pay for it?
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      Taxes. Ideally progressive taxes. The tax burden of a wealthy person in Seattle is currently incredibly low. (Speaking as a wealthy person in Seattle who is shocked at how little I have to pay every year to support my local community.)
      - maxharris 6y ago
        What do you think should be done about the wealthy responding to those measures by leaving the city, or the state?
        Pfhreak 6y ago
        Do you have data to suggest that will happen? People like to live and work in Seattle, just like they like to live and work in California and New York. Or Europe. Will some folks get grumpy about taxes and leave? Maybe, but I don't have any data to suggest that it will materially matter.
        maxharris 6y ago
        Let's suppose that in a couple of years, data emerges that demonstrates that this happens. What do you recommend should be done about it, assuming it were to happen? There is good reason to be concerned about this question, because a simple Google search reveals many articles on this topic: https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-municipalities-feel-budget-crunch-as-coronavirus-pandemic-squeezes-funding-11594027800 https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-municipalities-feel-bu... Do you believe that taking a wait-and-see approach is wise?
bryanmgreen 6y ago
This is whole thing about whether drivers should be full-time employees is so overthought. If Uber and Lyft are set on not paying the drivers full time, just cap the hours a driver can have at 20 per week. That will fix mostly everything. - It solves Uber/Lyft problems because they won't have to pay for benefits. - It solves the government's problems because they don't have to worry about full-time workers being taken advantage of. - It solves civilian problems because it make the roads less congested.
- asdff 6y ago
  Uber/Lyft doesn't like this, because they might get into a situation where there is a surge of demand and everyone hit their 20 hours already, and the only way to counter that would be to employ more people that would be wasted outside the surge. It makes sense, but these companies see drivers as resources to throw at demand and not people with livelihoods.
GoodJokes 6y ago
ITT: people needing to read marx
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
johngalt 6y ago
This isn't the right answer, but we should at least acknowledge that there are potential problems with the gig economy. I'm not quite sure how to reconcile this with my views on markets. The platform certainly performs a valid function, and markets are generally good at matching up buyers and sellers. Ostensibly everyone participating is doing so voluntarily. However, I don't find it particularly virtuous to have totally automated auctioning of labor pressing down on working class compensation and benefits. Constantly repricing every transaction to carve another 20c away from a guy driving for 12hrs a day.
- newguy1234 6y ago
  Let the individual decide what to do. It does not matter how YOU FEEL about it, what matters is what the worker wants to do. If the person doesn't want to work for the low rates then they're free to leave and do something else. Most people working for gig apps are doing it for side money anyways. It isn't a full time job for them and gig apps were never intended to be a full time job. If you want to help the workers then you can create jobs in the community and increase the demand for labor in general.
  - redisman 6y ago
    Someone who's so against FEELING you sure present lots of opinions as facts.
- paulcole 6y ago
  > Ostensibly everyone participating is doing so voluntarily I disagree that it’s voluntary. Nobody is driving for Uber because it’s their passion. For the majority, they’re doing it to make enough money to allow them to barely get by. They myth of college kid earning a couple extra bucks for beer money is a great bit of storytelling by Uber and other gig economy companies. Is there a literal gun to their heads? No. Is there a figurative gun where they’re looking down the barrel of not paying for meals, healthcare, and other necessities? For many, yes.
- ausbah 6y ago
  I think a large part of the problem is these middleman platforms treat both riders and drivers as consumers, they control both sides of the equation.
renewiltord 6y ago
I don't understand why everyone is reading secondary sources to interpret the law when Seattle City Council provides primary sources near instantaneously¹. You're just playing a game of telephone. ¹ https://seattle.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4633490&GUID=79E6DF70-DF86-4750-BFA1-17C16186A6F7&FullText=1 https://seattle.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=46334...
- chillacy 6y ago
  While I don't like Nth degree media (you know, the types of articles that link to other articles which link to other articles which link to the primary source), I'm also not a lawyer and find it tedious to read legalese. One of the jobs of journalists is to take information, make it explainable, and put it in context.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Fair enough. Skip to 14.33.050.A and read just that. It's written like a code specification. All the variables have values either defined there or trivially lookup-able. I'll copy it for you with constant params filled in: max(($0.32×minutes_with_passenger)/0.492 + ($0.83×miles_with_passenger)/0.622),$5) I calculated this for my last Uber ride (which was $18.47) and it was $24.84 instead so with a 25% margin that makes it $33.12. I think I would skip that ride and have done something else. For my last Lyft ride it cost $34.85 - $5.29 for Lyft Pink. I was prepared to do the $34.85. The calculated amount is $34.56 which with the 25% margin is $46.08. I know that ride so I would have brought my bike with me and taken BART that time. This is going to make going to the club a bit more expensive for me now if they do the same in SF. I'll probably suck it up on nights out but I'll probably drive for everything else. Important note: Unlike the big argument everyone is having in the comments, you can't actually get paid for idle time right now. The way it works is that idle time gets loaded into calculations of those two factors which are currently 0.492 and 0.622. So if you want to game those figures you need to create more idle time but you'll only be able to take advantage of it next year (when they're updated).
grumple 6y ago
I think it's interesting that there's so much talk about minimum wages for drivers, but restaurant workers have been working for $2-3/hour for decades, including periods of time when they are doing untipped work.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  The places with these conversations do not have that. Both California and Washington have the same minimum wage for tipped and untipped workers. So in Washington you are guaranteed $13.50 / hr and then tips go on top. In California you are guaranteed $12 / hr and then tips go on top. In Seattle, where this law was passed, the minimum wage is over $16 / hr and then tips go on top. Alabama does do that bit with the $2/hr minimum wage if tips make up the balance but there isn't a significant effort in places like that to backstop wages for drivers. Essentially, there is no inconsistency.
  - redisman 6y ago
    > So in Washington you are guaranteed $13.50 / hr and then tips go on top. In California you are guaranteed $12 / hr and then tips go on top. Wait forreal? I gotta stop tipping.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      It's still socially expected in these places, so you might face some censure. But yes, for real. Interestingly, SF which has a $15 min wage has higher socially expected tip percentages than the rest of California.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      Americans have such a fetish for tipping. I think it makes them feel like generous benefactors to be in control of someone’s earnings. You could raise the wage for servers to $100k per year and people would still want to tip 25% for a $50 sandwich. But changing the system so that employers pay employees properly? That would be ludicrous...even though it works for just about everyone else.
- 6y ago

186 points by clouddrover 6y ago

MrBuddyCasino 6y ago

I wonder if the majority of drivers think this is an improvement or not.

daenz 6y ago
Frankly I don't think that actually matters to the city council. If given the choice, they would rather be seen as people who fight for platitudes than people who actually have an overall positive effect but nobody notices.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  City council has recently: Outlawed the use of chemical weapons, slashed the police budget, increased funding to community programs by tens of millions of dollars, created a rent relief program for tenants during Covid, increased minimum wage, increased taxes on high earning large corporations, and more. All of these have a materially positive effect on the people of Seattle.
  - drak0n1c 6y ago
    I disagree with your assessment of "materially positive". Police response times have been dismal in my neighborhood in North Seattle, and crime has increased. The maintenance man who worked with my wife downtown was murdered by a tenant recently because there was not enough police resources to accompany the eviction of a tenant who was making violent threats. The community programs have had no noticeable effect on poverty or homelessness rates, as prosecution and drug court diversion has been discarded. I see needles most times I go for a neighborhood walk, and the children's playground is currently occupied by vagrants who are chopping down trees in our park. The minimum wage laws pushed my young brother-in-law out of full-time employment in 2019 and led to his moving out of state. Multiple local shops and restaurants have closed over the last few years because they can't keep up with rising artificially imposed costs. The new taxes on businesses and high earners has led to Amazon moving 25,000 jobs out of the city to the east side.
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      > The community programs have had no noticeable effect on poverty or homelessness rates I'd be surprised if they did, as they were approved last week. > Police response times have been dismal in my neighborhood in North Seattle This sounds like a problem with the police dept independent of funding levels, as the funding was only reduced last week. (I also live in North Seattle, and I haven't seen data on crime increasing or decreasing. In general, I've seen lots of car prowls, but relatively low crime otherwise. > Multiple local shops and restaurants have closed over the last few years because they can't keep up with rising artificially imposed costs. This is always the way business works. If those businesses relied on exploiting laborers to make ends meet, then maybe it's better that they are being replaced with other businesses that don't? Also, from what I've seen, rising rents are much more problematic for businesses in North Seattle. > The new taxes on businesses and high earners has led to Amazon moving 25,000 jobs out of the city to the east side. I'm not sure they did. Did Amazon reduce their investment in Seattle by 25k? Or did they simply increase it by 25K outside of their core area while they also increased in their core area? The increase in taxes is also relatively recent, so there's no way that Amazon did this in response to a tax increase (as siting 25,000 people takes years of planning.)
      - nickpp 6y ago
        Raising rents in Seattle are also the result of deliberate actions took by the city to discourage building.
        Pfhreak 6y ago
        Do you have some citations that this is the recent policy of the city? I agree that a decade or more ago, the city absolutely bungled their housing planning. The current city council has been, from what I've seen, trying to open up development through permitting more Accessory Dwelling Units in residential areas [1], increasing the zoning in many neighborhoods in Seattle [2]. [1] http://www.seattle.gov/opcd/ongoing-initiatives/encouraging-backyard-cottages http://www.seattle.gov/opcd/ongoing-initiatives/encouraging-... [2] https://mynorthwest.com/1311997/seattle-city-council-upzoning-mha-final-vote/ https://mynorthwest.com/1311997/seattle-city-council-upzonin...
  - triceratops 6y ago
    All the rest are fine but "Outlawed the use of chemical weapons". What?
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      The City Council banned the ownership and use of chemical weapons and undirected crowd control munitions (e.g. blast balls) by the police dept (or their allies). The police were flooding residential areas with CS gas to the point that, at times, you couldn't see down a block. https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/06/16/seattle-council-bans-chemical-weapons-and-other-brutal-crowd-control-tactics/ https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/06/16/seattle-council-bans-...
      - MH15 6y ago
        The Seattle PD continued to use chemical weapons after the ban, so there's that.
        Pfhreak 6y ago
        The mayor sued to ensure the police could still deploy indiscriminate chemical weapons.
        debian_lover 6y ago
        I guess the cops are supposed to just let the city get burned to the ground, because tear gas is bad.
  - MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
    Otherwise known as „How to ruin a city, one pinprick at a time“. Second order effects are real.

cletus 6y ago

So here's one thing I've never understood about such measures to treat drivers as employees: how do you handle drivers who drive for multiple companies at once? It's fairly well known that drivers will sign on to multiple apps and choose which rides they take. Like they don't know the destination but still. What if a does 2 rides for Uber and 1 for Lyft in an hour? Who pays the minimum wage here? Both? It seems like this would be incredibly hard to police and strengthens the argument that drivers aren't employees. EDIT: to be clear I'm not talking about, say, alternating days for Uber and Lyft. I'm talking about drivers who are signed into both and take the first that comes up. They'll also accept rides on one app while still doing a ride on another. This is really common. This is not a "multiple part-time job" scenario.

zitterbewegung 6y ago
Having two jobs versus one job and with a minimum wage would just have your hourly rate increase on both jobs to the minimum rate . Just because you have two jobs doesn’t mean that the law doesn’t apply . What just happens is the ride share companies have every hour a driver is working and if it falls below the minimum wage then they would have to increase it to the minimum.
- Kiro 6y ago
  They are working both apps at the same time, picking rides from the first that pops up. I don't see how hourly rates would work with that unless they timeslot every hour to one company, which is not how it currently works.
  - zitterbewegung 6y ago
    I haven’t seen a driver that has a ride share when one is from Lyft and the other is from Uber. But that doesn’t matter because you would calculate minimum wage by taking the amount of time worked with the income and then computing the difference between the hourly rate.
    - 6y ago

lwhalen 6y ago

I wonder how long before these companies pull out of Seattle, or Washington entirely. If it's just Seattle, will they just geofence the city and not allow rides to originate or terminate there? What happens if a driver is transiting the city limits, but isn't within for a full hour - does the minimum wage get prorated, or what?

viraptor 6y ago
Why would they pull out? Taxis existed before Uber and others. Either a) Uber at scale can't compete with local taxi service which will return pretty quickly, (so Uber would die anyway in a long run) or b) they will be completely fine with a few tweaks around scheduling / number is drivers.
- wgerard 6y ago
  > Taxis existed before Uber and others. To be fair, taxi service in seattle was quite awful during the pre-uber times. It was usually best to pretend they didn't exist unless you were at a location they congregated frequently (the airport, for example). Hopefully, the prompt and transparent service that came with Uber is here to stay even if the company itself isn't.
  - kenjackson 6y ago
    This is true about pre-Uber taxi service. But it has improved largely due to Uber competition. It would suck to lose Uber and Lyft, but I don’t think it would be long for a competing local service to pop up.
    - dantheman 6y ago
      Need to make sure taxis have to pay this minimum wage too... let's see how that works.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  And/or raise prices on consumers who are using the drivers who have to be paid more. That seems like a component of any solution to the issue.

rattray 6y ago

Some questions here about whether this means drivers will get paid for idle time. This Seattle Times article has clearer wording on this: > The legislation will set new per-mile and per-minute rates for drivers while they’re transporting passengers, meant to be high enough to also account for expenses and downtime. > To guarantee the minimum wage, the new rules will use a combination of per-minute and per-mile pay rates, divided by what’s known as a “utilization rate.” That figure is based on the share of drivers’ time spent with passengers in the car, rather than waiting for a ride. Other specifics include $29.90/hr gross hourly pay while driving (to target $16.39/hr total), $5 per-trip minimum. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/seattle-to-require-minimum-wage-for-uber-and-lyft-drivers https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sea...

rattray 6y ago
Another quote, voicing a concern I share: > the new formula incentivizes companies to keep that utilization time high when the city calculates its pay rates. That can mean the companies look for ways to have fewer drivers on the road. Personally, I'm all for legislation around minimum per-minute, per-mile, and per-trip payments. Keeps a level playing field and prevents a race to the bottom in a situation where workers can't collectively bargain. But this "utilization rate" thing definitely sounds like an overreach that's likely to have unintended/regrettable consequences. It should be up to drivers to determine if they're spending too much time waiting around, and choose to do something else with their time when that's the case (my impression is this is one of the best parts of these programs for drivers currently - it's easy to act on your opportunity cost).
908B64B197 6y ago
What happens with drivers logged-in on multiple apps at the same time? Do they both pay the driver his iddle fee? Almost every driver I encountered had both apps open and would shut the other one down when accepting a ride. How does this works for medallions drivers? The poor driver who just paid 150$ for the privilege of renting a medallion car for the day. Is he getting paid when waiting for rides?
- 6y ago

foota 6y ago

If legislation like this were adopted widely it might have a positive incentive of driving ride sharing companies towards less driving time by having passengers do more of the work, e.g., by setting up common drop off and pick up locations (similar to existing functionaity that lowers the price by having you walk a bit)

noirbot 6y ago
I think this brings up a problem though. By raising the cost of labor, you're more incentivized to try to make sure that labor is used efficiently. This is why, pre-Uber, it was hard to impossible to get taxis in some small towns, suburbs, or less-active parts of the city. If you're paying someone minimum wage whether they're actively driving someone for a fare or not, you can't afford to have someone on the clock out in the middle of nowhere where there's a low chance they will ever get a ride. One of the benefits of the current system is that being available to start a ride is essentially "free", both for the driver and the passenger. I've had times where I called a Lyft, and had it be someone who literally was living in the same apartment building I was in, and walked down to their car, drove out to the street, and picked me up. Presumably they were just at home, but still active in the app to take rides. This helps to expand coverage for pickups to areas where it wouldn't make sense to have a car just actively circling. Drivers have a reason to be searching for a ride near them, even if there's a low chance of it popping up. How do you solve this? We see this issue in other industries as well - food deserts are a similar issue. It's expensive to run a full grocery store, so you can only afford to put them in places where they'll see enough traffic to warrant it. But as a general culture, there's value in services that aren't economically viable on their own. Optimally, some of this would be solved with public transit or such, but that can't just be done overnight, or to everywhere it's needed, so what's the in-between?
- Nbox9 6y ago
  Seattle doesn’t have this problem at all. You solve this problem by not enacting these rules where they don’t make sense. Seattle does have a ton of Uber drivers that work 60+ hours a week and are barely making ends meet.

dfxm12 6y ago

"the real harm here will not be to Uber," Uber said. "It is the drivers who cannot work..." The city's researchers found that drivers made an average of about $9.73 per hour. For reference, Seattle minimum wage is $16.39/hr. This appeal to employment is disconcerting, as ride sharing apps are doing their workers no favors by paying them so poorly (including the lack of benefits). When talking about jobs, especially in the US where so many benefits are tied to employment, a job with pay so low and no benefits should not be considered a good thing.

marcusverus 6y ago
> The city's researchers found that drivers made an average of about $9.73 per hour. Why cut the quote off in the middle of the sentence? > The city's researchers found that drivers made an average of about $9.73 per hour, while the ride-hailing companies' researcher put the number at $23.25.
- muttled 6y ago
  I assume that the city's researchers looked at take-home divided by time available to drive and the companies probably only counted the time the drivers were actively engaged. It's why they only want to have to pay a wage when a driver is engaged: they can make them clock out in between rides.
  - wgerard 6y ago
    Actually IIRC last time I looked it was more like city researchers usually subtract depreciation on the vehicle from the earnings, which can be quite substantial (IRS rates are roughly a quarter per mile). Uber doesn't subtract that, so the rate per hour varies wildly.
  - kenjackson 6y ago
    They both said they did what you note. But they have different data sets. The companies included tips and not any delta associated with insurance. Oddly the companies would not share their data set with the city but did share it with Cornell. Just on that count alone I tend to look more favorable to the city’s numbers.

user5994461 6y ago

"Seattle's law will require drivers be paid at least 56 cents per minute and $1.33 per mile driven while transporting passengers."

advisedwang 6y ago
For comparison Seattle's regular taxi rates are: Fare = $2.60 + $2.70 per mile + ($0.50 per minute while speed<11mph) [1] https://www.seattle.gov/your-rights-as-a-customer/file-a-complaint/taxi-for-hire-and-tnc-complaints/taxi-fares-how-much-does-a-ride-cost https://www.seattle.gov/your-rights-as-a-customer/file-a-com... [2] https://library.municode.com/wa/seattle/codes/municipal_code?nodeId=TIT6BURE_SUBTITLE_IVNELICO_CH6.310TAFREVE_VENSTRA_6.310.530RA https://library.municode.com/wa/seattle/codes/municipal_code...
- jiscariot 6y ago
  The "regular" taxi cab medallion cost averaged $35k in 2017 down from $200k in 2013[1] otherwise you will likely be leasing it and a car from a taxi company. If I recall, the daily buy-in is generally $90-150. So these costs should be included in the calculation. [1]http://leg.wa.gov/JTC/Documents/RFPs/RFP_TAXI_FINAL.pdf http://leg.wa.gov/JTC/Documents/RFPs/RFP_TAXI_FINAL.pdf

deleted 6y ago

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moralsupply 6y ago

https://fee.org/articles/the-eugenics-plot-of-the-minimum-wage/#:~:text=On%20that%20the%20eugenicists%20were,power%20to%20work%20for%20less https://fee.org/articles/the-eugenics-plot-of-the-minimum-wa.... > Whatever the intentions, the effects are still the same. On that the eugenicists were right. The eugenics movement, however evil its motive, understood an economic truth: the minimum wage excludes people from the job market. It takes away from marginal populations their most important power in the job market: the power to work for less. It cartelizes the labor market by allowing higher-wage groups access while excluding lower-wage groups.

jahaja 6y ago
For this to be true - that higher labour costs keeps people out of jobs - one must ignore the last ~70 years of Northern-European labour market.
- AdrianB1 6y ago
  Yes, take Sweden for example: no minimum wage. Let's take Norway... no minimum wage. They both do just fine.
  - jahaja 6y ago
    What a dishonest comment. I'm very sure that you know why that is not needed in Sweden and Norway but you just manipulatively skip that part.
    - triceratops 6y ago
      For the rest of us, why aren't they needed in Sweden and Norway?
      - jahaja 6y ago
        The main reasons for the lack of minimum wage laws are because of a high degree of unionization and the widespread use of collective bargaining agreements.

jahaja 6y ago

"People will lose their jobs!" This has been said about every increase in worker benefits ever. Luckily things still work out.

ggreer 6y ago
US labor force participation rate is at all time lows: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...
- chickenpotpie 6y ago
  That has nothing to do with worker benefits and is completely caused by the pandemic.
  - ggreer 6y ago
    That graph is over the past 20 years. Even during post-2008 recovery, labor force participation rates decreased. Of course the pandemic is going to cause a spike, but the general trend is undeniable.[1] 1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01300001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01300001
    - jahaja 6y ago
      What's your point? We already know that high labour costs (as in a liveable wage even for so called simple jobs) doesn't necessarily cause high unemployment. Northern-European countries have proven it for ~70 years.
      - ggreer 6y ago
        I'm sorry, but you're incorrect on two matters of fact. First: the EU's labor force participation rate is significantly lower than the US's (58.3% in 2019 vs 63.4%). If the US had the EU's LFPR, we'd have 13 million fewer jobs. Second: Denmark, Austria, Finland, and Sweden all lack minimum wage laws. They have other programs that benefit poor people regardless of whether they have a job or not.

maxharris 6y ago

How will Seattle respond to robotaxis?

Pfhreak 6y ago
Hopefully Seattle will have strong public housing, basic income, and other safety nets to support a basic quality of life for every resident. Then we won't have to worry about this for every new tech advancement that pushes workers out.
- maxharris 6y ago
  How will Seattle pay for it?
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    Taxes. Ideally progressive taxes. The tax burden of a wealthy person in Seattle is currently incredibly low. (Speaking as a wealthy person in Seattle who is shocked at how little I have to pay every year to support my local community.)
    - maxharris 6y ago
      What do you think should be done about the wealthy responding to those measures by leaving the city, or the state?
      - Pfhreak 6y ago
        Do you have data to suggest that will happen? People like to live and work in Seattle, just like they like to live and work in California and New York. Or Europe. Will some folks get grumpy about taxes and leave? Maybe, but I don't have any data to suggest that it will materially matter.
        maxharris 6y ago
        Let's suppose that in a couple of years, data emerges that demonstrates that this happens. What do you recommend should be done about it, assuming it were to happen? There is good reason to be concerned about this question, because a simple Google search reveals many articles on this topic: https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-municipalities-feel-budget-crunch-as-coronavirus-pandemic-squeezes-funding-11594027800 https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-municipalities-feel-bu... Do you believe that taking a wait-and-see approach is wise?

bryanmgreen 6y ago

This is whole thing about whether drivers should be full-time employees is so overthought. If Uber and Lyft are set on not paying the drivers full time, just cap the hours a driver can have at 20 per week. That will fix mostly everything. - It solves Uber/Lyft problems because they won't have to pay for benefits. - It solves the government's problems because they don't have to worry about full-time workers being taken advantage of. - It solves civilian problems because it make the roads less congested.

asdff 6y ago
Uber/Lyft doesn't like this, because they might get into a situation where there is a surge of demand and everyone hit their 20 hours already, and the only way to counter that would be to employ more people that would be wasted outside the surge. It makes sense, but these companies see drivers as resources to throw at demand and not people with livelihoods.

GoodJokes 6y ago

ITT: people needing to read marx

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

johngalt 6y ago

This isn't the right answer, but we should at least acknowledge that there are potential problems with the gig economy. I'm not quite sure how to reconcile this with my views on markets. The platform certainly performs a valid function, and markets are generally good at matching up buyers and sellers. Ostensibly everyone participating is doing so voluntarily. However, I don't find it particularly virtuous to have totally automated auctioning of labor pressing down on working class compensation and benefits. Constantly repricing every transaction to carve another 20c away from a guy driving for 12hrs a day.

newguy1234 6y ago
Let the individual decide what to do. It does not matter how YOU FEEL about it, what matters is what the worker wants to do. If the person doesn't want to work for the low rates then they're free to leave and do something else. Most people working for gig apps are doing it for side money anyways. It isn't a full time job for them and gig apps were never intended to be a full time job. If you want to help the workers then you can create jobs in the community and increase the demand for labor in general.
- redisman 6y ago
  Someone who's so against FEELING you sure present lots of opinions as facts.
paulcole 6y ago
> Ostensibly everyone participating is doing so voluntarily I disagree that it’s voluntary. Nobody is driving for Uber because it’s their passion. For the majority, they’re doing it to make enough money to allow them to barely get by. They myth of college kid earning a couple extra bucks for beer money is a great bit of storytelling by Uber and other gig economy companies. Is there a literal gun to their heads? No. Is there a figurative gun where they’re looking down the barrel of not paying for meals, healthcare, and other necessities? For many, yes.
ausbah 6y ago
I think a large part of the problem is these middleman platforms treat both riders and drivers as consumers, they control both sides of the equation.

renewiltord 6y ago

I don't understand why everyone is reading secondary sources to interpret the law when Seattle City Council provides primary sources near instantaneously¹. You're just playing a game of telephone. ¹ https://seattle.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4633490&GUID=79E6DF70-DF86-4750-BFA1-17C16186A6F7&FullText=1 https://seattle.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=46334...

chillacy 6y ago
While I don't like Nth degree media (you know, the types of articles that link to other articles which link to other articles which link to the primary source), I'm also not a lawyer and find it tedious to read legalese. One of the jobs of journalists is to take information, make it explainable, and put it in context.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Fair enough. Skip to 14.33.050.A and read just that. It's written like a code specification. All the variables have values either defined there or trivially lookup-able. I'll copy it for you with constant params filled in: max(($0.32×minutes_with_passenger)/0.492 + ($0.83×miles_with_passenger)/0.622),$5) I calculated this for my last Uber ride (which was $18.47) and it was $24.84 instead so with a 25% margin that makes it $33.12. I think I would skip that ride and have done something else. For my last Lyft ride it cost $34.85 - $5.29 for Lyft Pink. I was prepared to do the $34.85. The calculated amount is $34.56 which with the 25% margin is $46.08. I know that ride so I would have brought my bike with me and taken BART that time. This is going to make going to the club a bit more expensive for me now if they do the same in SF. I'll probably suck it up on nights out but I'll probably drive for everything else. Important note: Unlike the big argument everyone is having in the comments, you can't actually get paid for idle time right now. The way it works is that idle time gets loaded into calculations of those two factors which are currently 0.492 and 0.622. So if you want to game those figures you need to create more idle time but you'll only be able to take advantage of it next year (when they're updated).

grumple 6y ago

I think it's interesting that there's so much talk about minimum wages for drivers, but restaurant workers have been working for $2-3/hour for decades, including periods of time when they are doing untipped work.

renewiltord 6y ago
The places with these conversations do not have that. Both California and Washington have the same minimum wage for tipped and untipped workers. So in Washington you are guaranteed $13.50 / hr and then tips go on top. In California you are guaranteed $12 / hr and then tips go on top. In Seattle, where this law was passed, the minimum wage is over $16 / hr and then tips go on top. Alabama does do that bit with the $2/hr minimum wage if tips make up the balance but there isn't a significant effort in places like that to backstop wages for drivers. Essentially, there is no inconsistency.
- redisman 6y ago
  > So in Washington you are guaranteed $13.50 / hr and then tips go on top. In California you are guaranteed $12 / hr and then tips go on top. Wait forreal? I gotta stop tipping.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    It's still socially expected in these places, so you might face some censure. But yes, for real. Interestingly, SF which has a $15 min wage has higher socially expected tip percentages than the rest of California.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Americans have such a fetish for tipping. I think it makes them feel like generous benefactors to be in control of someone’s earnings. You could raise the wage for servers to $100k per year and people would still want to tip 25% for a $50 sandwich. But changing the system so that employers pay employees properly? That would be ludicrous...even though it works for just about everyone else.
6y ago