Gig workers worked more but earned less in 2024: study

I've had a ton of friends and coworkers do Lift/Uber/Dash and nobody I know actually makes a serious profit once they account for maintenance, consumables, fuel, healthcare, etc.

The companies know this. They "dynamically" change the payout rate so nobody can actually make real money.

This is in the US where these companies have been caught using "dynamic" pricing to screw everyone over.

I love HN posts with lots of numbers like this. And we can do searches and see its not far off from quick queries. Is that data+driven? Any case,) rooting conversation (especially these days) in ~verifiable data is important for good discourse.

Making videos about working at Wolt earns more money than actually working at Wolt

It was always like that, however the marketing was great. Even here you had people arguing how it was better than a regular job since you can make your own hours. Only, your not going to be making money doing food delivery when people are sleeping. Most money for driving people around will be either at rush hour or a weekend evening.

So you're not making your own hours you are working hours set by "the market".

Yeah the math is really important.

Whether a magician at kids birthday parties, or food delivery, or hanging sheetrock you need to figure out how much you’re actually going to make.

Driving is just a gig, it's not like they are super invested in it and did years of study in a particular style of driving and couldn't do any other job. The apathy is because it's easy come, easy go.

I eat bread, Uber CEO eats marble steak. On average we eat a burger

I'd like to know how much they make after factoring in gas, insurance, and wear/tear on the vehicle

> waning economy and rising costs

The US economy appears to growing at about the same (inflation-adjusted) rate that it has since the 80s. [0]

But it certainly does seem that the consumer price index is failing to capture the reality of rising costs. For example the big mac index significantly outpaced the CPI the last few years.[1] And obviously housing and education costs have outpaced inflation. I guess it's politically expedient to under-report inflation... I wonder what the "real" GDP growth would be if we had a measure of cost that actually reflected the reality of people's lives.

Of course, that's not even mentioning increasing inequality.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1/

[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/apr/how-big-m...

Yeah, surprise surprise, $13/hour is getting close to the average minimum wage ($11.18/hour). Except without any benefits, and all the expenses that would normally be covered by your employer.

How do you figure $13/hr? Most of the Uber drivers I have had work less than full time, and often weird hours: 3am to 1pm three days a week for example.

My most surprising encounter was an actual taxi. I asked the driver how does that work and he said that Uber fills the gaps in moments when he isn't getting any calls, as hardly anyone takes a taxi to travel short distances in the middle of the day.

Indeed, I called an Uber because I was in the middle of house hunting and a taxi would be considerably more expensive.

Do you have any source that would agree with your 30-40%?

I would guess based on personal visual observation that at least 50% of doordash drivers are not the person listed on the account. Although over maybe 100 orders, I've only had 2 real problems.

and this corpos don't give one fuck as usual

The only thing stopping minimum wage from rising is the Republican Party. The minimum already isn't market-driven, and it isn't pegged to inflation, either.

Adjusting for inflation, it's not surprising to see the lowest earners making less money.

Minimum wage is not a market-driven empirical number "here's the lowest wage that we were able to find someone working for".

It's a government imposition that bans any jobs that would pay less than some decreed amount.

I've had several drivers in the LA area using $80k+ vehicles. The few I've asked, they've mentioned they work from home and it gives them an excuse to drive their car.

Ubers I take like the last 5 years are brand new Teslas or some other exorbitant car, car lobby shoving them leasing down the throat so they are enslaved to work off just the lease interest for few years

Most of the people I see buying Land Rovers probably need a side gig to afford them.

I take your point, but I believe "freedom to quit and go elsewhere" is also a critical distinction...

Could you explain what you mean by upward mobility here? If you mean by working more hours, that’s not a novel way to make more money.

"There is also more upward mobility in gig work as you can optimize over time to earn more, which isn’t possible in some jobs."

I think there is zero upwards mobility. Gig workers will always be a commodity at the bottom of the hierarchy. No promotions, no bonus, no RSU. Even their performance doesn't matter much. For example I can't request a specific Instacart shopper or Uber driver again who did a good job.

If genuine question... it depends. Gig work both creates new opportunities (AI classifying RLHF jobs for example) but also systemically removes them. I.e. jobs may not exist now that companies can gig out the bits they need. I have no solutions just an observation.

“Gig work” was always shitty pay _after_ you consider all of the expenses and depreciation in assets. You are an “independent contractor” after all.

If you drive for a TNC, you may on paper earn more per hour but after gas, wear and tear on vehicle (changing out brakes, tires much faster), increased maintenance, steep depreciation of vehicle, higher insurance premiums for commercial auto.

Then you factor in having to buy your own health insurance on the market, dental insurance, and other expenses that a normal, salaried, full time job comes with. Don’t forget about the taxes you have to pay out at the end of the year that would normally be taken out with each paycheck.

I remember doing gig work when those companies were shelling out $1,000s for new drivers. But once those teasers expired and rates got cut, it didn’t make much sense from a financial aspect to continue doing so.

Great beer money for a college student but I don’t see how folks make a sustainable living on the slave wage.

Its not really something you do to get an improvement in your salary.. It would be tough to find something lower paying in my state at least!

Can we restructure society so that the only perks and benefits of work is a paycheck?

Healthcare should not be tied to our employer, for starters--and that's a big start. Is there anything else we need to decouple?

Perhaps then it becomes 'You have reached your weekly maximum 19.5 hours. Come back next week for more work.'