Drivers are not helped by wage mandates is Seattle and New York. And customers complain higher prices and cold food. It’s a perfect trifecta of complaints.
Neither drivers nor customers are happy with misguided politicians attempting to help driver get better pay.
It’s losses all around as Delivery Drivers Got Higher Wages. Now They’re Getting Fewer Orders.
The delivery companies—whose businesses are built on gig workers they don’t employ full- time—say they can only afford to pay so many workers under the two cities’ latest pay standards. The cities want the companies to pay couriers a minimum hourly wage based on the time they spend delivering orders and reward the most efficient workers. New York City now requires that the companies pay couriers at least $19.56 per hour before tips, up from an average of $5.39 per hour before its rules went into effect in December.
Uber Eats’ UBER orders in Seattle fell 45% last quarter from the same period a year earlier after the company imposed a $4.99 fee on each order to cover the city’s new pay requirements. Demand also cooled in New York City, Uber and DoorDash DASH.
Consumers already pay the apps a service fee and delivery fee, in addition to tipping workers. For some, the latest app fees were the last straw.
Seattle-based researcher Ro Singh was hooked on ordering in several times a week until the city adopted its pay measure in January. App prices “became absolutely nuts,” he said, after adding varying delivery fees in addition to tipping. He started picking up the food himself.
“It’s like double the price to order a $20 burrito now” compared with the pickup price, he said. “This is insane.”
Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said the company has had to cut 25% of the delivery drivers who previously worked for the app in New York City. “So far, regulation has definitely hurt the people that it’s supposed to protect,” Khosrowshahi said last month on a call with analysts.
Shuai Zhang, the owner of Poprice, an Asian street-food restaurant in New York City, says his delivery sales are a third of what they were before the changes. Drivers who once picked up from his restaurant are now asking him for jobs. He hired two of them.
Fewer workers delivering for the apps means it takes longer to pick up orders. Customers are complaining about deliveries arriving cold and soggy, Zhang said. To make up for lost sales, he has started working as a restaurant consultant.
Seattle driver Gary Lardizabal said he makes less money now despite working more hours. Breakfast and afternoon-snack delivery orders have disappeared. Smaller deliveries don’t make sense because of the new $4.99 fee, he said.
Perfect Trifecta of Who Is Unhappy
- Drivers because they are making less money
- Restaurants because they are losing business
- Customers because of slower deliveries, cold food, and higher prices
The city loses too. Seattle collects a sales tax of 3.85 percent.
Seattle vs New York
New York City says the plan is working. The only thing I can come up with is reduced traffic.
Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson is pushing to reverse the new earnings standard after complaints from drivers, restaurants and consumers, though she wants to ensure that workers still make the city’s minimum hourly wage before tips.
What a hoot.
Not having learned anything from this, Nelson still wants to mandate minimum wages. I wonder what miserable failure she will concoct next.
Price Wars at McDonalds, Starbucks, Walmart, Target
Meanwhile, please note A $5 Meal Deal at McDonalds, Price Wars Also at Starbucks, Walmart, Target
Still more signs of consumer exhaustion are evident in tactics by McDonalds, Starbucks, and other chains’ attempts to woo back customers who said no more to rising prices.
Breadsticks at Olive Garden Highlight Financial Strain on America’s Middle Class
In case you missed it, please see my June 20 post, Breadsticks at Olive Garden Highlight Financial Strain on America’s Middle Class
Traffic at Olive Garden is up 3.9 percent but but same store sales are down 1.5 percent. Are people filling up on unlimited breadsticks? Drinking less wine?
Discretionary Spending
Repeating comments I made in the McDonalds post, all of the articles in this post have one thing in common. They are all about discretionary spending.
Consumers are tapped out and that is the first, if not only thing consumers can cut back on.
Profound displays of ignorsnce and no education by the comments here —- almost all RUBES —- America is sooo over!
Freaking morons still do not GET IT — it is forcing people out of jobs and encouraging companies to employ ONLY ILLEGALS!!!
These people (Democrats) never learn. Probably never had a basic economics class or ran a business or anything else that required a basic understanding of economics (that includes me but I got my training on the job running my own business and learning several lessons the hard way i.e.with consequences!)
You freaking slow bunnies NEVER comprehend the underlying agenda for destruction!!
The pay should’ve been mandated to come out of what the apps are already charging. The apps also need to stop hiring. This article reads like it was generated by Uber’s PR department.
If you don’t like what you are paid, don’t take the job.
It’s that simple
The point is to force all companies to ONLY employ ILLEGALS!
TOO COMPLEX for the rubes??
Get off your bums fatskys, and cook your own food!
“Seattle Mandates $4.99 Fee on Uber Eats to Help Drivers, Deliveries Crash 45%”
The equal and opposite reaction thing, strikes again. Democrat politicians never seem to want to learn. For one, the cure for higher prices, is higher prices. Action, reaction. Everyone has their price point of no return.
You clowntards! They want the companies to ONLY employ ILLEGALS —- think!!!
‘“It’s like double the price to order a $20 burrito now” compared with the pickup price, he said. “This is insane.”’
It is insane to pay $20 for a burrito.
Any burrito.
There are 100s of cooking shows. Learn to cook. You’ll pay A LOT less and get much better quality.
That’s what I do! I’ve developed a love of cooking this way and I know my food hasn’t been messed with.
BINGO! less traffic, which implies the goal was Climate Change.
THAT ALSO!!
Time to get change out of your pajamas (for some that won’t happen), put down the game controller, get on your bike (I’d say car but that is a luxury), and get your order to go in person. Better yet, go to a grocery store and learn how a microwave oven works.
$3 burrito.
Big fat American on a bike? delusional
I used to do that in college when I had no car also did my laundry that way too! It helped that the laundromat and the market were right across from each other. I’d do my grocery shopping while the laundry ran put it in my large backpacking backpack, go back to the laundromat, put the clothes in the dryer and then ride back home to my small farming pumphouse (a one room shack-$75.00 a month rent) where I cooked on a three burner Coleman stove. Then back to the laundromat on my Peugot ten speed (which was really my landlord’s as I had rebuilt it for him and I got to ride to get to work and do all my errands). Then back to collect my laundry. Other than that I took the bus everywhere and to school (university) which was 7-8 miles away and up a fairly long and steep grade. Those were the days! Little or no bills, no mortgage just study and try to make it to graduate/dental school.
$20 burrito? 😳
Also missing is what is the true “hassle price” of going and picking up the damn food yourself versus paying for delivery. As noted below a large number of these orders use Other People’s Money (companies, parents) and this is not in play. But when people are ordering for themselves there will be a mental analysis of getting in the car and getting the food versus paying the tack-on fees.
I personally have never used one of these services because I don’t see the big deal of ordering by phone or on-line, getting in my car, and doing the round-trip (plus I can make sure the order is right, maybe build a rapport with the staff if I decide to become a regular). Supposedly there is an adult generation that doesn’t drive or have cars, so maybe I am just not the target audience for this, so it is a bit amazing watching government kill a business that serves such a small niche.
Two sequential posts about food. Mish must have written them when he was hungry.
Doesn’t the price charged for the food and delivery cover everything? I’m confused o’ wait Government wants a say in it.
Well, somebody was complaining to their guv representative. Probably a driver not making enough money by making the poor choice to do this work in the first place. The government took that action proposed by the poor drivers, which promptly kicked them in their collective a$$e$.
So you got the “Free Market Price” which is dictated by the people that are within that market, and what they are willing to pay for a price. Many call this “The True Value” way of doing business.
Then you have the “Minimum Wage” Price which is a Government Mandated cost based on a totally made up wage, based on absolutely nothing. Many call this “The Communist Approach” to doing business.
Then you have the “Under The Table” Price. Which is how much any person is willing to do something for a price agreed upon. Many say this is the “Fairest”, because everybody gets what they feel they deserve for the job they agreed at a fixed cost to do.
The only problem with any of these is with the one that “Sets a Fictitious Cost” and isn’t it ironic, it’s the one with all the problems… Oh, and the Government is involved of course!
The food is never hot anyway. These food delivery services are the most overpriced and overrated thing in the food industry.
“Not having learned anything from this, Nelson still wants to mandate minimum wages. I wonder what miserable failure she will concoct next.”
It’s it obvious? The next thing will be to mandate 2 drivers per delivery. One to pick up the food and bring it half way and another to meet that first driver and do the final mile to your home. That way she can claim she created jobs (reduced unemployment), mandate a pair of 4.99 delivery charges which can then be taxed so she can also claim she raised tax revenue.
You school flunkouts!! The opposite — forcing or encouraging companies to ONLY employ ILLEGALS —– NOT American workers!
You clowns really think the rich Maoists on the city and county councils work on behalf of the workers?!?!
Are you daft???
What do you mean consumers are tapped? The economy is the best it’s ever been!
That’s absurd!
A few generations ago a man could work for one company his entire career and afford to buy a house and take care of his wife and kids with it.
What part of that do you see today, besides none of it?
You should actually check out what things cost, and what people made in 1950.
Most things were a lot more expensive than now.
But they didn’t have all the technology we have. People waste their money on things that didn’t even exist in 1950, AND THEN incorrectly, they complain about what things cost today.
A fridge in 1950, would be $5,000 today. We get a much bigger fridge, with filter, ice, and water, for less than $2,000.
And you don’t have to manually defrost it a few times a year.
Maybe true but I still own that Kelvinator and my electric analysis says it is nearly as efficient to do basic cooling as the new refrigerator, which is now my 4th vs that one that has lasted about 70 years!
There is too much brain fog in Seattle. Gen Lloyd Austin and general Charlie Brown are for “law & order”. They will protect our military assets.
The two Tobies do what Jill Biden says.
They obey the invisible hand says.
Sesttle, like other cities, is controlled by the financial elites (Community Development Roundtable) —- whose agenda is to ONLY employ ILLEGALS — NOT any Americans!
You bubbas need to grow some neurons!
People get the government they deserve.
Sadly, many of us get the government others vote for. The corollary to the addage about history is: “Those who DO learn from history are also destined to repeat it because they are outnumbered and outvoted by those who do not.”
Sadly, DINGALINGS do not understand the Soviet–style American election process as you are ignoranuses!
People get the Government that they pay for.
At least in theory.
Dominion loves those wänker comments, rubetard!
We have been to local high-end Restaurants only to be billed $10 for a “GLASS” of wine only to see the Wine arrive with a 1/8 cup of wine with the wine clearly only filling the very bottom of the glass: JUST LIKE A WINE TASTING portion at a Winery.
The last time was it and I told the waitress: “I ordered a GLASS of wine, not a SHOT of wine” and my wife and her two friends looked at me as if I had spit fire.
I am held my ground and ate the free bread, did not order food and got a free glass of water. I was surprised that they did not charge me 5 bucks for the tap water that tasted like pool swill.
My wife who likes wine complains about the very same thing. She keeps mental track of which places give good pours and those that give average or bad pours like what you got. We never ever return to places with bad pours and rarely to places with average pours.
“I ordered a GLASS of wine, not a SHOT of wine” and my wife and her two friends looked at me as if I had spit fire”. I don’t have to guess who was paying for it. Most western women (I can define what one is) see men as a walking, talking ATM with eyes and a penis.
This is why we NEVER order wine at a restaurant anymore. We bring our own and pay the corkage fee. The reason your pour was so short was you “only” paid $10 for it. A 9 oz. pour is now routinely $14-$15, and the wine is cheap, mass market stuff you would buy at the supermarket for around 12 bucks a bottle.
That reminds me, I need to rack my wine. It’s my first attempt of making cherry wine.
Sometimes the wife orders wine out … but rarely. I never do … I make sure I’ve got a bottle at home … I’ll have $4 Diet Coke at the restaurant (which is over $5 after tax and tip) before a $10 or $12 sip of wine.
Nah, the restaurant typically pays around $7 a box for wine.
Just be thankful you didn’t have to pay the “seating fee” with the additional DIE (sic) surcharge.
Are you a newlywed?
When mediocrities try and get creative but are really just following ideological abstractions. The infantilization of politics.
Things get broken when politicians “fix” things that aren’t broken.
Stupid is as stupid does.
I would never order food to be delivered by angry people.
How about this plan? 1. Become an UBER eats driver. 2. Order your food from Uber eats with no tip. 3. Grab the order as the delivery driver and pick it up yourself.
I understand the idea that you are suggesting (get paid as an Uber Eats driver to pick up your own food) but since you also pay that 4.99 charge as the person buying the food you don’t make anything. In fact you lose by the fact you technically have to pay taxes on that 4.99 you earn.
Tips probably crashed even more.
But Trump is going to make tips untaxed! Free income!!
I’m probably going to vote for Trump as the lesser of evils … but his list of stupid statements keeps growing.
As opposed to Joe Biden’s list, which has maxed out. If you remember the ‘virus overload’ scene from the ORIGINAL Andromeda Strain with Arthur Hill – “601”.
I like eating Sterno! Kudos to the Andromeda Strain linkage.
The inflationary and regulatory depression is roaring right along on schedule devouring everything in it’s path. All parasites should be very pleased.
Uber Eats, DoorDash, etc. are money-losing services – there is no margin or profit.
there is no real/quantifiable money to be made in food delivery, just tips for drivers.
a significant percentage of food delivery are customers who are spending someone else’s money (parents, spouse, employer), and i doubt the services would survive in any form without these proxy spenders.
And these delivery drivers choose to be delivery drivers. I doubt that anyone put a gun to their heads to force them.
A proposed bill for universal gun application to drivers is tied up in committee.
Definitely a huge number of them are orders by college students. Otherwise, the users of these apps are the people at the bottom of the income scale. High income people generally don’t use them nearly as much.
Yes, they go out to be seen in their fancy clothes. Part of eating out is for SHOW.
High income people became high income people by a lifetime of not pissing away money.
If there wasn’t margin or profit no one would be doing them.
Even if it’s just tips for drivers, someone is making money otherwise the service would not be performed.
???
silicon valley VC business models rarely see margin/profit in the first decade or more. they rely on monopoly-level hockey stick adoption projections (which never happen), then hope for an acquisition when the inevitable reality becomes obvious.
reaching a public offering is the only real objective… that’s when the initial VC backers cash-out @ huge multiples… everyone downstream from the initial stock offering is a bag-holder.
but i sincerely love your naivety.
You just said there is profit, for the VC people down the line (assuming it gets that far). So you literally proved the point.
Lots of businesses fail. But they never set out to deliberately lose money.
VC cash-out is not business profit or margin… you are trying to move the goalposts because you don’t know what you’re talking about… so stop picking fights (that you’ll lose) and try to learn something… FFS, you remind me of freshmen/sophomore students… are you an adult? or a child?
“they never set out to deliberately lose money”.
yes, they do. the typical SV VC business model will commit to losses (they call it “burn”) for as long as a decade, and very, very, very few of them reach the end of that runway… they “burn” to an “exit” by design. IOW, they never had any intention of reaching profitability, just an exit. There is NO equivalence b/t this sort of “business” and a traditional business.
this is the difference b/t VC “business models” & the traditional business model that we learn about in school… apples & oranges… or more accurately, apples & elephants – not even close to being the same thing.
VCs are early rounds and then become salesmen for institutional money at much higher valuations. So, yes, there is a “profit plan” but not in the very simple way you’re thinking.
Ironically, the most “liberal” people I know use these high carbon footprint services. The hypocrisy of Democrats is unparalleled
No, right wing hypocrisy is what is unparalleled. The ‘oh, we HATE gubermint <sic>’ – UNLESS it is being used to invade privacy of people you hate. As one of many examples, maggots love having the government mandate against people getting transgender care – including adults (looking at you, Missouri) – and laws are still on the books regarding consensual private acts in the privacy of people’s bedrooms (and yes, these laws in many states apply to everyone, not just same-sex couples) — not to mention laws now being formulated against contraception.
THIS is the height of hypocrisy.
Oh, and another great example of the supposed gubermint hater’s hypocrisy – what about the new laws passed in Louisiana mandating the teaching of the Ten Commandments in public schools. This absolutely violates the separation of church and state. Now you love the government when it does crazy stuff like that, yes?
If you want to join the Taliban, why not move to Iran?
Perhaps you Democrat party socialists would be happier in North Korea which is officially a independent socialist state. Life should be perfect for you there
Uh… because the Taliban is in Afghanistan?
If you join the Taliban, you can marry a 15 year old. If you join ISIS, you can throw gays off the roof. So I’m torn.
As with Church and State, there needs to separation of Economy and State.
Best commentary ever read. Please, someone must put it in marble.
An absurd statement but I suppose I can understand it considering that it’s made by someone who’s never studied history. The State is always present in every economy from the Tigris-Euphrates civilizations on.
Restaurants are absurd-I think Mish needs to return to this topic.
I went out to dinner with old coworkers who suggested a schnitzy pizza place. The personal pizzas that were shared were 28-30 dollars each!!! I paid 100 bucks for my share of wine and some pizza. HOLY CRAP I will never go there again.
Pizza, no matter what the ingredients are is about (at worst) $3 bucks of ingredients. Service never was good enough. And to boot a rat ran across the street.
-markups on wine are absurd
-new card tech with minimal suggestions of Tips(while server watches) guarantees at least 20% added to bill
-Nothing they come up with is healthier than eating at home and cooking fresh
I HATE eating out. I just get angry and reverse engineer the dish for later
Go to NakedWines, buy $200 of wine that lasts for months and months.
Buy a fancy steak-you will never get close to overspending like at a restaurant.
Plus service is totally dominated with immigrants now, who really are not all that into the art of food and preparation. Don’t even get me started with trash chains like Oilve Garden, Chevys or Cheesecake factory
“reverse engineer”
There are so many recipes online for your favorite restaurant dish. Good strategy, assuming you’re going out for a particular meal.
Personally, my wife and I rarely go out and when we do its for a meal that neither of us can prepare (personally, I don’t cook). So when we go to our favorite dinner house, I order beef liver (which I love, but my wife won’t prepare) and she orders some special pasta dish. But we know we’re going to get soaked ($$) before hand, so that’s expected. And we tip generously, as we both worked as servers many decades ago when in college. It’s a tough racket.
I only go out for beef Wellington.
Acceptable foie gras is hard to find.
And I’m lazy.
Keep in mind a good percent of prices they charge is gobbled up in overhead, utilities, labor and rent. Government food and labor regulations plus inflation is the final blow to affordable dining out. I can’t imagine running a restaurant you would have to be crazy all roads lead to going broke.
It all depends on your location. On the Island in the PNW where we spend the summer we almost never eat in the tourist oriented and very expensive restaurants. In Tucson, where we spend the winter we can share an excellent pizza and a huge salad for $14 and still take nearly half of it home, a sizable glass of house wine is $6.00. Our favorite Chinese place has lunch specials for $10 that include soup, egg roll, and fried rice and are plenty for two.
We spend the summers in Balzers (and 10 days in the winter) and the winters in Papeʻete and we never look at prices.
The American standard of living is contracting because investors avoid government regulated industries such as fast food, automobiles, education, electricity, energy, homes, food, and medicine. Anything you tax or regulate you get less of it.
Yes, regulation is often a form of taxation.
“The American standard of living is contracting because investors”
Yes.
An absurdly untrue statement based on facts, but I can see you’re not an expert and working from impressions. For profit universities (eg University of Phoenix) were, at one point, quite the “hot tip” for inexperienced investor.