When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the US (bloomberg.com) 726
A feature report on Bloomberg today illustrates the lives of several Uber drivers, who find shelter in car parking at nights when it's too pricey and tiring to go home. An excerpt from the story: In Chicago, Walter Laquian Howard sleeps most nights at the "Uber Terminal." "I left my job thinking this would work, and it's getting harder and harder," Howard said. "They have to understand that some of us have decided to make this a full-time career." Howard has been parking and sleeping at the 7-Eleven four to five nights a week since March 2015, when he began leasing a car from Uber and needed to work more hours to make his minimum payments. Now that it's gotten cold, he wakes up every three hours to turn on the heater. He's rarely alone. Most nights, two to three other ride-hailing drivers sleep in cars parked next to his. It's safe, he said, and the employees let the drivers use the restroom. Howard has gotten to know the convenience store's staff -- Daddy-O and Uncle Mike -- over the past two years while driving for this global ride-hailing gargantuan, valued at $69 billion. "These guys have become my extended family," said Howard, 53. "It's my second home. We have this joke that I'm the resident. I keep asking them: 'Hey, did my mail come in yet?'"
America! (Score:4, Insightful)
America! Fuck yeah!
Re:America! (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, uber is just a side money job, that's it. I mean, should I pay a living wage to the kid down he block to mow my lawn or rake leaves...or baby site my kid, and throw in full blown benefits too?
I know I"m moving closer and closer to the "get off my lawn" crowd, but please tell me, I missed it..when did things change an EVERY job available became one where you were supposed to make a living from and have a career?
I mean, when did burger flipping become a "real job" instead of something teens did in high school?
Re:America! (Score:5, Insightful)
Uber advertised the median salary in New York for Uber drivers was $90K per year while in San Francisco the median was $74K per year. People then went to work for Uber based on those advertisements.
You're not implying that Uber lied [slashdot.org] when telling people they could have a full-time, good paying job driving people around like is done in every other cab company, are you?
Re:America! (Score:4, Interesting)
should I pay a living wage to the kid down he block to mow my lawn or rake leaves...or baby site my kid
You have a choice. You can pay a living wage or you can pay for the social safety net that subsidizes those jobs that pay less than a living wage. If a job does not pay enough for the workers to support themselves then that job is being subsidized in some manner. (How do I know: because the worker is alive.) You can pay the wage or pay the subsidy, but you will pay.
--
JimFive
Re:America! (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll take a third choice: instead of a social safety net (or even raising the minimum wage), spend that money on low-skill government jobs that no one is doing, with no cap on hires. Pay the $15 minimum. Cleaning litter, landscaping highway medians, cleaning train stations and trains. Oh wait, never going to happen, for two reasons:
The right: that's expansion of government! They're taking more of our tax money!
The left: If they don't want to do those jobs they shouldn't have to just to live!
Never mind the benefit of overall wage / working condition improvements to all jobs across the board. The power of "My crappy office job is so terrible that pulling weeds along the highway for $15/hour and benefits is appealing, and I can get that job tomorrow" would set standards naturally without needing legislation.
Re:America! (Score:4, Insightful)
That would qualify as a social safety net, though obviously isn't a cash handout.
Re: (Score:3)
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Or, yet another choice those folks get other jobs that *DO* pay a living wage, or work two jobs to get by....
They can also try to be somewhat intelligent human beings and see that they need to spend time off work honing skills that get better jobs!!
It simply is NOT that hard to get a job out there. It might not be one you like right off to bat, but there are jo
Re: (Score:3)
I know I"m moving closer and closer to the "get off my lawn" crowd, but please tell me, I missed it..when did things change an EVERY job available became one where you were supposed to make a living from and have a career?
You better be careful even asking this question. The baristas at Starbucks might draw nasty designs in your foam.
Re:America! (Score:5, Informative)
Things did not change. The minimum wage was set to ensure that EVERY job pays a living wage, minimum. During boom times, salaries soared and minimum wage jobs were the ones kids took. Adults worked "real" jobs that paid more. That is where that false perception comes from.
FDR made a public speech after signing the minimum wage in to law. He said:
"In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living."
http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.... [marist.edu]
Re:America! (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, when did burger flipping become a "real job" instead of something teens did in high school?
When jobs on that pay scale became the only kinds of jobs that an enormous fraction of the populous can get (and having a job working for someone else became necessary for survival because everything everywhere is owned by someone else so you either work for whoever will hire you or die).
Re: (Score:3)
Great point cayenne8, there is a bit of a problem though with the foundation of your argument. That being that, yeah, back in the day, only/mostly kids who would take these types of jobs for extra cash. Unfortunately due to automation/outsourcing/walmart/dual-income trap, the number of good quality jobs has diminished. Subsequently for a lot of people, these side-gig jobs are the best thing out there. So, now the crap-shit jobs are the few jobs left. When Pres Obama was going on about job creation, sad
Uber is a Taxi Cab service (Score:3)
Burger flipping became a 'real' job when globalism eroded the job market for folks who couldn't make it to college. There's millions of 'em, and last I checked neither you or anyone else in this country has the brass balls to put a slug between their eyes and end their misery. Maybe you do. Either do something about their awful lives or admit you don't care. But enough already with the B.S. about how these jobs aren't jobs for adu
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" capitalistic business owners that moved all of the manufacturing jobs overseas to make more profits" ...
Which had something to do with high taxes, unions pushing out poor products while protecting *some* workers who didn't cut it, and over-regulation in the US.
Re:America! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Markets are an artificial creation. It takes governance to have a market. Do you also want to scrap all the safety regulations for the traffic service market? I.e better airfare from airlines that are not at all regulated? Sounds awesome, doesn't it?
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Intentional on their part.
People talk about "the new economy" but it's just piecework right out of the 19th century, only with an app.
Re:Yea, America's fault. Wait, lets blame Trump! (Score:5, Insightful)
We know that half the population is not intelligent and we know that modern marketing techniques can subvert intelligent, aware and thoughtful people. Ergo half the population is very vulnerable to exploitation by malicious people and companies that have resources.
You may consider those victims a cash cow. I personally feel that it's appropriate that society provides them with a level of protection, including preventing cunts like Uber from building a massively valuable company by breaking the law and exploiting people that were unfortunate enough to trust them.
Conning people out of money is illegal in most countries. It's fraud or comes under other legislation. Why do you think that conning people out of their labour is perfectly just fine?
At least they did not ask me (Score:3, Funny)
Sleep at night?
Safe? If I did not put on this costume, after my Uber shift ends, and devote my nighttime hours to fighting crime, there would be no place to stop for them; no place to sleep.
Rest easy.
Ride-sharing is a career? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmm, it's almost like they encourage people to do this job full time. These people used to be called taxi drivers before marketing got hold of it.
Doesn't sound like any Uber drivers I know or have (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't sound like any Uber drivers I know or h (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, not starving is high on people's lists. The fact that they are grateful for the work cuts against the 'they don't need the money' argument you're about to make.
But yes, children in sweatshops were also grateful for the work.
Which may include over 40 hours a week. After all, most people convince themselves they want to do something if they are forced into the situation. And people tend to want to work over starve.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes. By imposing some limitations on the contractual agreements that can be formed, Uber will have to offer better jobs or go out of business because of a lack of drivers. This will make their employees better off.
soon self driving cars will (Score:4, Funny)
Regular Taxi Service fears.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting article, it pretty much explains why regular taxi service employees are so against Uber. When you have a competitor that undercuts the service so much that you need to live out of your car in a parking lot, it's somewhat hard to make a living from it.
Re:Regular Taxi Service fears.. (Score:5, Interesting)
And makes you realize that the economics of Uber are not understood by the "contractors". They compare something like "$20/hr" from Uber to $15 an hour somewhere else and think Uber is better without realizing their effective wage may even be less than $0 from Uber after taxes. It also makes you realize how we ought to prioritize protecting people like Uber drivers rather than worrying about increasing minimum wages. Uber has destroyed many people's lives, generally to the benefit of the upper middle class and the wealthy having lower taxi fares.
I am a conservative but until we add financial literacy to the high school curriculum we need to protect the idiots that fall for these scams where you bring in the depreciating capital equipment to bear for another company. Uber is essentially a modern day Ponzi scheme. The only difference is you are not giving Uber cold hard cash - you are amortizing your capital investment in a car for their and their customers benefit.
Re:Regular Taxi Service fears.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical car salesman con: how much can you afford per month.
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Fortunately for us all there's a balance available between those two extremes.
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leasing a car from Uber sounds like the company st (Score:5, Insightful)
leasing a car from Uber sounds like the company store days of the past where they lock you into the job and when the work slows down / something bad happens your on the hook to make the company full and you are not even an W2 worker.
Basic income (Score:5, Insightful)
As a society, we have 3 options:
Now which one is it going to be?
Re:Basic income (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why we need basic income. Nobody should have to live like that, especially people who are motivated and actively looking for more work.
He chose to quit the job he was currently in and drive for Uber instead. His biggest mistake is leasing a car from Uber. To be fair, Uber is in trouble currently for not meeting the advertised terms and conditions of the leases and it could be argued he was misled into believing he could easily pay off the lease at the rate they promised. However, you really shouldn't be driving for Uber unless you have your own car. And if he had his own car, he would have been better off keeping his original job and using Uber as a side job for extra cash. Of course, Uber nothing more than an illegal cab company exploiting poorer or disadvantaged people as a cheap labor force and skimming everything they can off the top.
Re:Basic income (Score:4, Insightful)
How does basic income solve any problems long term? Won`t all prices just simply adjust due to market forces and we are back to square 1?
Example: Rent in a rich nice area of town is $2000/month. Right now only lawers and doctors can afford that.
Universal income comes in and gives everybody $5000/month. Now pretty much everybody can afford those apartments. There is an increase in demand but no increase in supply. So the monthly rent jumps from $2000 to $7000/month. Poor people can once again not afford those apartments.
Re:Basic income (Score:5, Insightful)
It's pretty simple. You can't make the UBI be comfortable for the 99%. It should be "enough to survive", not $5000/month. Switzerland tried that with a $75K year minimum and it was shot down at the polls in overwhelming numbers. That is way too much money, and the fact that until you find a job that exceeds that you get no benefit means very few people would have incentive to work. Even if I do make more than that, why would I work 40 hour weeks for 48+ weeks a year for a mere few thousand dollars extra? I sure wouldn't.
But let's adjust that, lets give everyone the poverty level. Sure, maybe you can afford rent in a studio, or have a room mate. Maybe you can eat cheap, but you can't buy anything of luxury. Yeah, some people will take that one bedroom studio, ramen, and a bag of pot and an World of Warcraft subscription. Fine, they're out of the way and not committing crime, they weren't motivated to start with and arguably provide little value to society, and now they're out of the way and not resorting to crime for 'easy money'.
But single mom Jane can now afford to go to school and just work part time. Poor orphan kid can go to school when he turns 18, instead of just being dumped on the streets to figure out life on his own because he aged out of the social care for children. Abused uber driver can afford to quit and get a better job. Incredibly smart but poor entreprenuer can afford to take time to build out his idea and make a million dollar business. Yes, these are all hypotheticals, but Finland is testing that right now. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/universal-basic-income-finland-ubi-test-scheme-experiment-a7211241.html)
The thing is, a family father trying to provide for his family needs to see benefit from going to work as a janitor. Not everyone can be an engineer, and lets face it at some point even that job will be replaced by automation. Now he gets that UBI, but when he goes to work he still makes his family's life better. Sure, maybe he's taxed at 50%, but he still benefits, so he does a job that nobody else wants to do.
Let's face it, all minimum wage is is a UBI that is only applied to people lucky enough to get jobs, and it encourages companies to not offer some jobs in the first place, or try to automate them away as fast as possible. And then by requiring benefits ONLY to people working over so many hours just ensures they don't let people work over that many hours, and hire 2 people instead of 1. Is it bad to spread the wealth over 2 people instead of 1? Probably not, for the executives of the world. 10 people making $100K is arguably much better than 1 person making $1 million and 9 people starving.
In order to get to a UBI, the first thing we have to accept is that UBI doesn't mean you get everything taken care of. It means you can survive while you try to better yourself, or you can stay out of the way. We already do this with various food stamp, rent assistance, child care credits, and scholarships, but the problem is the beurocratic overhead, stigma, and it's hard to get everything to line up to where you can actually get out of the dependency loop. Yes people do it, but can we make things better? UBI might be a bad answer. Finland will tell us soon. Right now we're stuck in a loop of doing things the way we do them because that's the way we've always done them, and that may not be the right mindset.
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I do actually anticipate rising costs alongside any UBI. Pretty much every job out there is an upwards cash vector, pretty much all your money goes back to the 1%, not your fellow John Does. Bills, car, mortage, insurance, services - how much goes to your neighbor
Re:Basic income (Score:4, Insightful)
the fact that until you find a job that exceeds that you get no benefit
This is not true, or shouldn't be and doesn't need to be true.
Let's say we set the basic income to 50% the mean wage (which would be about $25k/year basic income, or a little over $2k/mo), and fund it by a 50% tax on all incomes (which is more than offset by the basic income for about 75% of the populace who currently fall below that mean income). A homeless with no income thus suddenly has a free income of about $2k/mo. But every nominal dollar they earn on top of that, they still get to keep 50 cents of it. If they get a full time minimum wage job, that amounts to over $600/mo extra. If they get a full time median-wage job (around $25k), that amounts to around $1000/mo extra. On top of the basic income. By the time they're working a full-time mean-wage job (around $50k), they're making twice as much as the basic income, after basic income and the taxes they pay to fund it are factored in (and the basic income and the taxes they pay to fund it exactly cancel out in that case). And even at that point, there is still motive to continue working; if they make twice that again, they're still going to end up with yet another extra $1000/mo or so (compared to the mean income) after taxes and basic income are accounted for.
If you were to make the basic income something more like $1000/mo, which is barely enough to survive off of in many places (that's slightly more than what my destitute mother's SSI pays), or about 25% the mean income (or half the median income), and fund that with a 25% additional income tax, then instead people would be able to keep 75 cents out of every dollar they earn, on top of their basic income.
In any case, you'd have to set the basic income up in some kind of pants-on-head retarded way (like the way current welfare payments like SSI are set up) in order for it to not pay off to work unless you can get a job paying more than the basic income pays. Any sane way of doing it would provide incentive to work more at any income level. Yes, even the people making a millions per year: if the choice is between doing something that beings in another million of which you get to keep half or three-quarters or whatever, or not doing that and getting nothing at all, which do you think people are going to choose?
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Pretty sure some combination of 1 and 2 until it gets so bad everyone can see we need to do 3. Given how things are going with climate change, I fear that it will be cities on fire bad before we make that change.
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4. Head in sand.
5. Build a wall.
6. Start a war.
7. ???
8. Profit!
Re: Basic income (Score:3, Interesting)
He quit his day job to work for Uber. Basic income won't do a damn thing to prevent people from making stupid decisions. If anything, it will reward stupid decisions because failure effectively has no consequence.
Re: Basic income (Score:5, Insightful)
With a basic income, the consequence of failure will no longer be debt and homelessness, but there will always be an economic incentive to succeed.
And you're correct that a basic income will reward stupid decisions, which means it will also eliminate a big part of the risk of starting a new business, and that would be a very good thing for the economy.
Re: Basic income (Score:4, Insightful)
And no, Basic Income won't stop people from making bad decisions about their work, but that was never the point. With a Basic Income, he could be a complete idiot who vastly undervalues his own labor and works for $1 an hour, and still not have to worry that he'll starve. It's not about protecting you from yourself, it's about ensuring that you can survive even if you are unable to negotiate sufficient payment for your time/labor to do so.
You could argue that someone might still be an idiot and blow their Basic Income on strippers and drugs/booze, and then starve because they didn't have any money left for food, but there is NOTHING short of 100% state control that completely protect someone from their own idiocy.
Be part of the change (Score:3)
Shit on workers so hard they turn to full-time Uber then demand basic income on their behalf... Aren't you virtuous.
Despite your low-PH response, the OP really has a point.
Economically speaking, automation and increased use of AI(*) will put many people out of work(**), and unlike the previous manufacturing revolutions there won't be enough work remaining to keep everyone employed.
Our economic system has to change, it simply cannot survive the rise in productivity. UBI is one way to accomplish that, I know of at least three other viable solutions.
Being toxic and preaching doom and gloom won't solve this issue, but inspir
Re: (Score:3)
How does higher minimum wage make jobs disappear?
Let's consider this. I'm an employer who is making a product that is priced at a point where people actually buy it. If I raise prices, I lose sales.
Employees are a cost which is offset by the value they bring to the job. Unfortunately, the value they bring is, in this example, $12/hr. I pay them current minimum wage because by the time you include the other costs of that employee, you're up to $10/hr or more.
Now increase the minimum wage to, say, $15/hr. Their cost is now already $3/hr higher than their
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Because the minimum wage is a law enforced upon you and your competitors, your competitors' costs go up as well, meaning their prices have to go up too (or they go out of business), meaning there is less competitive pressure forcing you to keep your prices low or else lose sales, and so you don't necessarily lose sales by raising your prices in response to the minimum wage. The overall market price of your product goes up.
Which in general would mean that demand for it would also go down, which isn't necessa
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You missed option 4) Accept a slightly lower profit margin on the things you sell.
If I lose sales, I start operating at a loss. If I pay more for employees I start operating at a loss. That puts me back in the first three options, all of which means fewer jobs.
This ridiculous idea that every company is making huge profits and can afford to pay double for labor needs to stop.
Hours-of-Service Safety Regulations uber does not (Score:5, Interesting)
Hours-of-Service Safety Regulations uber does not give a dam about them but what will happen when an uber driver falls asleep at the wheel and does big damage?
Re:Hours-of-Service Safety Regulations uber does n (Score:4, Insightful)
Hours-of-Service Safety Regulations uber does not give a dam about them but what will happen when an uber driver falls asleep at the wheel and does big damage?
Nothing will happen. Mr Driver will be held responsible just like any Joe Sixpack that fell asleep behind the wheel. If he says anything about being an Uber driver:
1) Uber will bring up their "independent contractor" (not our employee/liability) business plan.
2) His insurance will bring up their "you're not covered under your personal policy if you're acting as a ride sharing/taxi-for-hire service" clause... and more of them have this nowadays.
The loser will be victims in the accident.
London Too (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in central London and we have a similar situation with food delivery bike riders. A couple have a very organised camp setup at a local church park. Another sleeps every morning at my wife's gym (where I presume he has discovered a membership is far cheaper than rent). I don't think I've ever seen a situation where there were so may people working yet homeless. There was a story in the paper recently about a guy who got a job at a pub that opened till 3am, and would then wonder around until one of the train stations opened at 5am so he could go in and sleep.
I just cannot see how this situation can continue. I don't think I could personally stand visiting the big empty homes of rich people to deliver them overpriced takeaways every night, while knowing that I'll never be able to buy a home of my own anywhere on the wages I'm earning. At some point surely these people will realise they outnumber the rich they are delivering meals for, and something is going to happen?
Sure it can (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Part of being an adult is recognizing that and behaving appropriately.
"They" don't have to understand anything (Score:5, Insightful)
When I tell people I'm a socialist one of the responses is: "Well, are you gonna force people?". Yes. Yes I am. This is civilization. You don't get to say 'no' to civilization. Just like you don't get to say no to the polio vaccine. That's because your actions do not happen in a vacuum. They don't just hurt you, they hurt me too.
So yeah, I'm gonna force Uber to pay a living wage or go out of business. I'm gonna force everyone to give everyone else health care (aka "single payer"). Because that's civilization. We're all humans. We're all valuable. Yes, everybody gets an ever-loving Gold Star. We all earned the right to a good life simply by being born human.
Re:"They" don't have to understand anything (Score:4, Insightful)
How will you decide what to force people to do? The economy is a very complex ecosystem. The risk of unintended consequences are high when tinkering with complex systems. I'm amazed when people who force a corporation to do something get upset when the corporation adapts to what they were forced to do in a manner apparently not envisioned by those forcing actions on the corporation. For example, forcing a corporation to pay more taxes, then being surprised when the corporation passes on the cost to customers.
I thought that the "grand experiment" in centrally-planned economies showed that central planning not only couldn't outcompete economies with distributed planning, but that centrally-planned economies couldn't even provide a reasonable living environment for the citizens. If you are going to force people to do things the way that you think they should be done, I hope you have a very good way to understand the consequences of what you are forcing on people.
I can't tell if you are trolling or not... is that a I here?
Re:Through democracy, careful planning (Score:4, Informative)
The trouble with all that is branding. When the right wing start a debate they've got simple answers to complex problems. They're always the wrong answers, because if a problem has a simple answer then, well, by definition it's not complex. But those simple answers feel good, sound good, and just got a Demagogue elected President of the United States...
Norwegian here, you don't think socialists have simple answers? Some people have a [something] problem, let's regulate [something]. Which means that right now at 8:30 PM on a Monday I can't buy a damn beer at the store. We need more money for [good cause]? Increase taxes. I could work harder, but I don't. Why? Because on my marginal dollar I pay 25% + 8.7% + 8.2% = 40% taxes and 25% VAT on most things mean I lose another 15%. Sorry for 45 cents to the dollar I'll just get an easy job (37.5 hours/week, paid overtime, flexible hours) and be lower middle class. If was in the US I'd probably work 50-60 hours/week and make $200k.
Getting kickback from creating value is not a socialist virtue, if you got lots of money you can pay lots of money is their thinking. The day we run out of oil all hell will break loose because we're lazy and think everybody deserves good pay just for showing up at work or doing meaningless paper pusher jobs. And since I can't change the public opinion and tax system to reward hard work, I've decided if you can't beat them then join them. Even on cruise control I seem to get praise for good work, which is both cushy and a bit creepy at the same time. Maybe it's just that I can't stand all the stupid and make actual working solutions from time to time.
We force people all the time (Score:5, Interesting)
You're going got get forced to do things one way or another. If you leave a power vacuum by trying to live with a weak central government then somebody will step in and take the reigns. Central Governments are just too valuable. Somebody sooner or later will create one for their own purposes. The question is never, "Will we have a strong Central Government?" but whether _you_ will participate in it?
Great news everyone: Prof Farnsworth (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, there's great news for this guy. In a few years, autonomous cars will eliminate the need for drivers, and this guy won't have a car to sleep in, or an income at all. The moral to this story is if you want to make a good living, get a marketable skill that takes some skill to develop and is in demand. Since virtually every adult in the US can drive, driving services were never going to be a cash cow. Machinist, electrician, elevator repair, commercial equipment service and repair, etc. are the way
Hooray for the gig economy (Score:3)
I hear so many people saying what a wonderful thing the gig economy is -- how much freedom they have, how much they love not working a traditional job, etc. All of that may be true, but just wait until all the traditional jobs go away and most people are forced into squeezing out a tiny living doing things like driving for Uber. I highly doubt everyone would be super-happy at that point.
The relative economic stability of the last century was driven by consumers consuming, buying stuff, paying taxes, etc. and that was driven by those consumers having a stable paycheck or other source of income to fall back on. When that gets kicked away in the name of disruption, society needs to have a better answer than "oh, we'll figure something out later." I've been lucky to have stable work, but I know that I cut back on spending when I think something might be afoot at work. I can't imagine never knowing whether I'm going to have a good or bad week coming up.
I think a lot of the gig economy cheerleaders are mistakenly thinking that Uber drivers are in the same league as, say, a flavor-of-the-moment software or IT contractor making $200+ an hour. I know a lot of people like this, who do nothing but travel around the country and get paid obscene amounts of money to implement the new hotness at random businesses. It's not super-stable, but they make enough to survive bad times. Uber drivers are barely breaking even, especially if they're financing their own vehicle purchases, etc. Like them or not, their business model is exploitative at best. Driving a cab is often the last resort job for people.
Cell 411 (Score:2)
Not sure why uber drivers stay in these abusive relationships. Use a more decentralized app like Cell 411 instead...it's free and you keep 100% of your fares: http://getcell411.com/ [getcell411.com]
Wear and tear, self driving (Score:3, Informative)
I use Uber several times a month. I love the service, and I believe that some of the improvements in Uber over Taxis are due to technology and innovation rather than just taking advantage of employees. Especially in smaller cities like mine, where critical mass for traditional taxi service is not there, but being able to track and summon Ubers works pretty well.
That being said, I have noticed that drivers are getting less happy. One problem I see is that people underestimate the wear and tear on their car. This is a real expense - more frequent oil changes, tires, etc.
The other problem is I've noticed less surge pricing. Uber has recruited drivers so aggressively they have effectively gotten the price down. If you think about it, Uber's model is great, because they raise the price until someone picks you up. This ensures you get a ride home. However, their base prices are probably unrealistically low, so if they can flood the market with drivers, they are basically getting them cheap.
Now they will churn through drivers doing this, but I wonder if Uber thinks there are enough drivers out there to churn through to tide them over until they have fully self-driving cars?
In such a wold of automation, you need to wonder about basic income.
GigEconomyScam (Score:5, Informative)
Looking at his numbers
Let say he makes $300/day, that’s $230 after gas and a couple of 711 munchies.
Well, since he’s self employed, he pays full SS & Medicare tas of 13.85% - which goes against GROSS receipts of $300 = $41.55
Secondly, reading through most Uber forms, people who work 55+ hours per week drive © 300 miles a day. A DAY!. The Federal allowance for vehicle maintenance is $.54 / mile. At 300 miles = $162.
The reality is he will have to change his tires, breaks, engine oil, much more often, and that costs Probably not far from the fed estimates.
So, take is net after gas, subtract $41.55 in SS/MC taxes, subtract $162 in maintenance leaves $96.45, which he as to pay Federal Income Tax of 10%.. or $9.65..
This leaves him with a NET of $86.81, for a 10 hour shift – or $8.91 with zero benefits.
You’re WAY better off flipping burgers.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
he pays full SS & Medicare tax of 13.85% - which goes against GROSS receipts
You must be mistaken, hardly anyone makes profits in the double digits of percentages. Most business men make like 1-2% profits. If you calculated tax on gross, no businesses would survive.
Tip them (Score:2)
And that's why I always tip my Uber and Lyft drivers. They aren't making as much as you think, and most people aren't doing it as their first choice of employment.
OTOH, if I were unemployed and since I have a decent car, I'd probably start driving for Uber or Lyft immediately while I looked for another 'real' job.
- Necron69
Just wow people, what the hell were you thinking? (Score:2)
"Howard has been parking and sleeping at the 7-Eleven four to five nights a week since March 2015, when he began leasing a car from Uber and needed to work more hours to make his minimum payments."
So you basically sold yourself into slavery just to skip taxi driver laws?
I tried to warn a friend (Score:4, Interesting)
A few years ago, a friend of mine who had been working in a full-time job in the hospitality industry, had signed up to be an Uber driver during his spare time. He claimed to be making an extra thousand dollars a month or so, which he used to finance a used vehicle.
I probed for more details. "What about insurance," I asked. "Have you accounted for wear and tear on the vehicle due to increased mileage? Is this a sustainable income model? What if the pool of drivers increases and you face increased competition for fares?" He was completely nonchalant: at the time, Uber was still growing, there weren't as many drivers as there are now, and since he was still receiving a salary, he had no concerns for wage instability.
Months later, he mentioned that he quit his full time job because he could make more money driving for Uber, and it was lower stress. He seemed happy. Well, we know how that turned out. He ended up essentially destitute, unable to afford food and rent; unable to fix his car when the inevitable breakdown occurred and would cost thousands to repair; and still had payments to make on the loan.
I'm not saying that these kinds of jobs cannot be sustainable as full-time employment, but it is a great deal more difficult to make it viable than the vast, vast majority of people enticed into the idea are led to believe. The fact that these companies make it sound like it's easy (for obvious reasons) is the modern-day equivalent of selling Amway.
Supply/Demand 101 (Score:3)
He likes driving, but, he said, “They need to stop lowering their rates.”
They won't until people like you stop driving. If you are willing to drive at X rate, then they lower it to Y rate and you are STILL willing to drive for them, they have zero incentive to go back to X rate. In fact, next stop will be an even lower Z rate.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Yeah, fuck you. ...
Seriously, was that animosity necessary?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"I left my job thinking this would work, and it's getting harder and harder," Howard said. "They have to understand that some of us have decided to make this a full-time career." Howard
Yeah, fuck you. The world doesn't owe you anything and even Uber's own ad campaigns bend over backwards to emphasize that this is supposed to be a side gig to make some extra money.
No, fuck you. It doesn't matter if Uber insist that it's supposed to be a side gig. If they're willing to let people work full time then they should be willing to pay full time wages. If someone's working 40 hours per week then they shouldn't be sleeping in their car out of exhaustion because they're struggling to pay their bills. Nobody who works full time should live in poverty. Period.
I can't believe that so many people have been conditioned into thinking that poverty is something that's okay to inflict
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but there are certain jobs in society that really aren't meant for a person to fully support themselves. Even moreso when the person is trying to support themselves and their family. Delivering the local newspaper was great job when I was 12 and I wanted to buy some hockey cards and music CDs. It's not a job that really requires any skills, and even if you are doing it full time, I couldn't see it being a job that's likely to pay a living wage.
Same with the job I had flipping burgers at McDonal
Re:I don't even like Uber but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't even like Uber but (Score:5, Insightful)
No, nobody should starve to death, or left without healthcare, or without drinking water, or not given the chance to get quality education at an affordable price.
Maybe we should push for things like Universal Basic Income, Single Payer Healthcare System, Free Education, and stop privatizing utilities?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:I don't even like Uber but (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like what you are saying is "some jobs aren't meant to pay for someone's subsistence"
My question is "what jobs are those?"
Are they "unskilled" jobs? If so, are you suggesting that there needs to remain a majority of people without proper education in order to have an "unskilled" work force so that you can go to the grocery store on Sunday or out to eat in the evening?
What happens if everybody has an education and is competing on the same level for "skilled" jobs and nobody wants to do the "unskilled" jobs? What happens if we don't have anyone to man the register or pick your food from a field? Wouldn't you say those jobs are necessary?
Is this a reason why we shouldn't make education easily accessible to all?
It seems to me that "unskilled" workers are necessary in order to provide a quality of life for the workers in "skilled" jobs. So why don't those "unskilled" workers, people who wake up every day and GO TO WORK in a job that they probably HATE, not deserve to be able to live a reasonably comfortable life?
I certainly appreciate the ability to order food that arrives at my doorstep or a cab/uber that can take me to where I want to go.
I am guessing that you appreciate those things too.... but you somehow don't feel that the people doing those jobs deserve a wage that will allow them to live at or above the poverty line....
Re: (Score:3)
My question is "what jobs are those?"
Are they "unskilled" jobs? If so, are you suggesting that there needs to remain a majority of people without proper education in order to have an "unskilled" work force so that you can go to the grocery store on Sunday or out to eat in the evening?
Yes, that's about the long and short of it.. people need to learn how to have a job, and learn the value of a dollar *before* they have the skills to command a livable wage... it grounds you to reality and teaches the young how the world works.
What happens if everybody has an education and is competing on the same level for "skilled" jobs and nobody wants to do the "unskilled" jobs? What happens if we don't have anyone to man the register or pick your food from a field? Wouldn't you say those jobs are necessary?
It seems like what you are saying is "some jobs aren't meant to pay for someone's subsistence"
This is exactly what he is saying. If everybody could skate by doing low/no-responsibility work without ever picking up any marketable skills, there would be very few people to do things that require responsibility and trade-skills.
These jobs are meant to be worked wh
Re:I don't even like Uber but (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with the GP, if you're willing to put 40 hours in of work per week, it should earn you a basic living wage in the area you're in. I don't really care what skill level the job is, it's a job and someone's working hard to complete it. Society needs people of all skill levels to function.
Minimum wage has not kept up with inflation. There are thousands of manufacturing jobs open in my area that go unfilled because they cannot find the people who want to work hard, starting at $10/hr without benefits. That's almost $2/hr above minimum wage. Even in this region where living expenses are very low, good luck paying your bills on $20k/yr.
Re:I don't even like Uber but (Score:5, Insightful)
I was making minimum wage and even if I was working full time, there's no way that I really deserved to make a living wage in that job. Again, it required very little skill
You keep talking about skill as it if was the only thing that mattered. Well, time matters, too. If you spend 1/3 of your life doing something for someone else then you should be able to make a living from it. It's just not a question of how hard it is, it's a question of how much time you spend doing it. If it order to pay flip burgers a living wage they have to raise the price of the burgers then so be it.
Re:I don't even like Uber but (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, time matters, too.
No, not really. You can spend 80 hours per week doing a job that returns $1000 in value to the company you work for, but you can't expect them to just hand you $1500 for your time. You have to do something that results in the money you get paid, it truly does not grow on trees.
If it order to pay flip burgers a living wage they have to raise the price of the burgers then so be it.
And when do you expect to get the raise that will allow you go buy the now more expensive product? Someone making $15/hr already who gets no raise when the minimum goes to $15/hr will be in serious trouble as the prices for everything that come from current minimum wage workers goes up to cover your largesse. I'm glad you have lots of excess cash now that you can spend on the more expensive products, but most people do not.
Re:I don't even like Uber but (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you think they should learn to program, or become auto mechanics, or HVAC technicians, or some other job that remains in demand. Some of them may well be able to, but is there really immediate demand for several million more of them? Did it ever occur to you that some of them might like to learn those skills, but lack the time and money it takes to do so? Education isn't cheap, and it's getting significantly more expensive by the year. And worse, you might find after you complete it that you can't get a job in that field, because the competition is high, and others are simply better at it than you are.
So what then? Because I'm going to hazard a guess that you're not suggesting that we fund a robust social safety net with programs to make sure those people don't starve, or some form of universal basic income.
Re:I don't even like Uber but (Score:5, Insightful)
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Who's responsibility is your own welfare? Is it a company's? The government's? Or yours?
The responsibility for your life is *yours*, and no one else's. If I decide to leave my full time job with benefits for Uber, I have no one to blame but myself if I can't make enough to get by. Further, it continues to be my responsibility if I don't find another job because my dream of driving for a living isn't working out.
It's not any company's job to assume your position in life, which is what you advocate when
Re:I don't even like Uber but (Score:5, Insightful)
It IS a company's job to pay a living wage to its workers. We had this discussion during the civil war. Slavery is now illegal. It's a moral issue. In any case there's also the economic argument that impoverishing the middle class (who drive economic growth through consumption) is a bit of a silly idea.
Re:It's your choice (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're sinking all your time into a low paying job instead of an education then that's your problem.
Because such an education costs nothing, and magically pays all your bills. And people don't need things like "food" or "shelter" while getting an education. Also, if you make the "right" choice and get a STEM education, there aren't more STEM graduates than entry-level job openings. (This site [cis.org] claims 1.55 graduates per job opening)
Oh wait, absolutely none of that is true. Huh. Almost like reality doesn't quite fit your model.
Re: (Score:3)
A business is not obligated to subsidize your choice to work a low paying job.
Of course they are, because otherwise the taxpayer ends up doing it.
Uber is for college students who want to make extra money running people around.
To drive for Uber in the UK you need to be a) 21 or over, which rules out anyone who isn't in their final year or hasn't already graduated and b) own a car registered in 2008 or later. Not many cash-strapped students drive at all much less in a new(ish) car.
If you're sinking all your time into a low paying job instead of an education then that's your problem.
No, it's society's problem. Some people are never going to get anything better than a minimum wage job, not out of idleness or other moral failing, just because that's the limit of what
Re:I don't even like Uber but (Score:5, Informative)
Uber's own ad campaigns bend over backwards to emphasize that this is supposed to be a side gig to make some extra money.
Uber was just this week fined $20M by the FTC for doing the exact opposite of what you're saying [ftc.gov], so pardon me if I don't believe anything you've just said. They were overstating median incomes by as much as $29,000/year [recode.net], advertising unlimited mileage for leases that didn't actually have unlimited mileage, and advertising that their leases were lower-cost than their competitors (which wasn't true in the least). The FTC found that in some markets, only around 10% of the drivers were making as much as the "median" incomes that Uber was advertising.
So while I do generally agree that the world doesn't owe anyone anything, I'll add the caveat that companies are obligated to not make fraudulent claims, which is exactly what Uber is being fined for having done.
Re: (Score:2)
Did anybody force him to sign it? No; Not a problem than. People make bad decisions all the time.
$575 for payment plus commercial insurance isn't unreasonable. Depends on his driving record. If he's totalled a car or two, it is cheap.
If he had any brains he would shift off the car, like cab drivers do. Perhaps share a cheap apartment with the same person(s).
Re: Welcome to the future of capitalism (Score:3)
Soon the clothes will be colorless and featureless. Unless you pay to have the colors, branding and features of the class you feel like belonging to. Total transparency for the lowest.
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Re: Welcome to the future of capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)
you must rent / buy your uniform and rent our phone / pda at $50 a week to work for us.
Re: Welcome to the future of capitalism (Score:5, Informative)
Don't know if that's intended as a joke, but years ago when I clerked an Allsup's, they did in fact make us rent our aprons. They paid a few cents over minimum wage, but fell below that bar if you deducted the cost of apron rental. They gave us the option of buying an apron, but they were fairly expensive and the laundering requirements were absurd compared to the laundry schedule the store managed.
Re: (Score:3)
Not lying - This was ~1996 in Carlsbad, NM. On Church Street next door to the Tia Maria apartments - Store was closed last time I was in town. Don't remember the exact minimum wage or apron rental cost. We got paid about a nickel over minimum and were docked about a dime.
It's just a guess but maybe the reason they offered the opportunity to purchase instead of rent got them around that law? Or the law's been updated since '96?
Re: (Score:3)
You should look into how Taxi companies work. People work the first 8 hours or so of the day just to break even.
Re:Welcome to the future of capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
And they have 99% of the new ideas, .
No, actually they don't. Some of the 1% did get there by work, but most of them got there by inheriting money. They don't have any ideas; they don't need to have any ideas. They can buy ideas. The world is full of people with ideas, but most of them don't have the resources to do anything with them.
provide 99% of the funding to develop new stuff, own/run most of the private infrastructure,
Yeah, that's the thing. They control all the funding, so if you have an idea you want to commercialize, you are pretty much guaranteed that you'll have to sell it to somebody with cash. And they own the infrastructure. One way or the other, you end up paying them.
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There being so few people rich enough to do anything with their ideas and so many poor people consequently beholden to those rich people is bad.
If the money actually flowed from the idle rich to the hardworking poor then the problem would solve itself, but it seems somehow (*coughrentandinterestcough*) the money always ends up flowing right back into the hands of the rich to spend over and over again ad infinitum, and never actually accrues in the hands of the poor who are nominally being paid it.
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Re:Welcome to the future of capitalism (Score:5, Informative)
Yes.
Easily.
Among OECD countries, the US has the 5th lowest economic mobility.
More economic mobility than the US:
Denmark
Norway
Finland
Canada
Australia
Sweden
New Zealand
Germany
japan
Spain
France
Switzerland
Less economic mobility that the US:
UK
Italy
chile
Slovenia
http://www.epi.org/publication... [epi.org]
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Re: (Score:2)
Kid? The man's 53.
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Actually, skilled construction trades are one of the few blue-collar jobs that are still viable, and will likely continue to be. It's impossible to outsource, and the situations are so dissimilar it's hard to automate. They tend to make good money (over 50k a yaer).
Re:Progress (Score:4, Insightful)
There are about 1.5 STEM graduates for every entry-level STEM job opening in the US.
Even making the "right" choice and getting an education is no guarantee of a successful future. No matter how much parents push it as a magic bullet.
Re:Showers (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another reason why they're just like taxis and taxi drivers.