Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 273 posts

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#241

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Clanan wrote: post #228
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct that I used a hypothetical methodology. That's because -- and this is the real problem -- finding the flaw in a specific methodology is a lot of work. It's often not just one thing that throws the numbers off by 200%, it's one thing that throws them off by 12%, then another by 7%, and twenty other little things that add and multiply up to an inaccurate overall conclusion. It can take multiple hours to…

Do other transportation jobs count transportation expenses against the wage? If not, then that is an excellent point. I would assume taxiing, food delivery, etc. would count them.

Probably a bad assumption. The guy delivering pizzas in his own car for minimum wage is basically an Uber driver that happens to do a lot of business with a pizza place.

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#242

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Clanan wrote: post #217
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much. If the majority of research is tainted by conflicts, that doesn't somehow make it any less tainted by conflicts. It's trivially easy to design a study to produce the results you want it to, just by selecting things like accounting methods at the outset. For example, one method of accounting is to allo…

Nothing you said refutes my claim. All research requires some sort of funding. Humans have biases which can affect their judgment/work. If you think potential conflicts should automatically make a paper worthless, then you're basically excluding the vast majority of scientific work. Read the paper and decide whether its methodology and results are valid and correct. Don't just look at a list of sponsors and walk away…

> Don't just look at a list of sponsors and walk away - that's just intellectual laziness.

Is everyone supposed to personally fully read every individual scientific study? That doesn't scale.

The only way it works is to have experts you trust to give you the truth, which is what the scientists are supposed to be, but the funding source undermines the trust.

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#243

Post by elgenie »

malandrew wrote: post #225
elgenie wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also read the methodology in the study when it comes out, since describing that is required in science, as opposed to questioning hypothetical methodologies that could be used. From the brief version of the study ( http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf ), it appears they're using per-mile costs and ascribing only the incremental costs on a per-mile basis. > Of the five sources of cost estimat…

> Of the five sources of cost estimated per mile (Insurance, Maintenance, Repairs, Fuel and Depreciation), approximately 40% of costs are attributable to Insurance, Maintenance and Repairs, 40% to fuel expenses, and 20% to depreciation. Does their methodology ascribe only the incremental aspect of each of these costs? If I own a car already for my own personal use. I'm going to deal with all of these costs. You're al…

The study's not published and expecting the two page preview of the working paper to have a 'discussion of potential problems with methodology' section is utterly unrealistic.

They're clearly trying to gauge incremental costs, not fixed costs, and each of insurance/maintenance/repairs/fuel/depreciation are incremental. The breakdown between the personal and ride-hail vehicle use is part of the study and appears in the sentence previous to the quoted one as "the vast majority of drivers report that the bulk of the miles they drive are for ride-hailing".

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#244

Post by gehwartzen »

omarforgotpwd wrote: post #170
davebryand wrote: post #52

I question the authenticity of the $3.37 number when I see that the paper this article references was published by an organization funded by these bodies: Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, BP, ClearPath Foundation, Conoco Phillips, Duke Energy, Electricité de France, EnBW, ENGIE, ENI, Eversource, Exelon Corporation, ExxonMobil, Gas Natural Fenosa, GE, Golden Spread Electric Cooperative, Inc., Iberdrola, IHI Corpo…

Why would those companies want to smear Uber? Many of them profit from uber. Uber sells a ton of gas and cars.

I would think the idea is that Uber/Lyft, in the long run, disinsentivizes individual car ownership (why own a car when I can take an uber?) except for those doing the driving for Uber/Lyft. So the overall dynamic might shifts from lots of people owning cars (but relatively low utilization rate) to a few people owning cars (with very high utilization rates).

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#245

Post by nemo3141 »

aianus wrote: post #226
nemo3141 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure about Canada but in US you are supposed to deduct expenses for Insurance, parking, licensing, registration as a percent of miles driven for business. So 20k miles driven total with 10k for Uber and 10k for personal means only half of your car expenses is deductible for Uber income.

Yes, it's the same here. Still, since Uber wasn't doubling my insurance (it actually didn't cost anything more), deducting half my insurance etc. for Uber is not really an accurate accounting of the expenses. I bought the car because I like driving and I like having a car, and I would have bought it anyways.

Oh ok that makes more sense. Yes the standard mileage deduction of 54c/ mile and other deductions makes Uber profitable if done in a right market with an old car. Few years back my deduction made it seem like I was in loss and didn't have to pay any taxes.

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#246

Post by malandrew »

elgenie wrote: post #243
malandrew wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of the five sources of cost estimated per mile (Insurance, Maintenance, Repairs, Fuel and Depreciation), approximately 40% of costs are attributable to Insurance, Maintenance and Repairs, 40% to fuel expenses, and 20% to depreciation. Does their methodology ascribe only the incremental aspect of each of these costs? If I own a car already for my own personal use. I'm going to deal with all of these costs. You're al…

The study's not published and expecting the two page preview of the working paper to have a 'discussion of potential problems with methodology' section is utterly unrealistic. They're clearly trying to gauge incremental costs, not fixed costs, and each of insurance/maintenance/repairs/fuel/depreciation are incremental. The breakdown between the personal and ride-hail vehicle use is part of the study and appears in th…

> The study's not published and expecting the two page preview of the working paper to have a 'discussion of potential problems with methodology' section is utterly unrealistic.

In that case, it's grossly irresponsible to publish what little they have. Society is still struggling to correct the "statistic" that a woman earns 70 cents for every dollar a man earns. This new statistic about how much TNC drivers make is going to be accepted as fact from here on out, when it's grossly misleading.

> "the vast majority of drivers report that the bulk of the miles they drive are for ride-hailing"

That doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of the drivers would already have that car as a sunk cost whether they drove the vast majority of those miles for ridesharing or not.

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#247

Post by fludlight »

foepys wrote: post #134
fludlight wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this for commercial or personal drivers?

Personal drivers. Prices might be higher than in the US but it's hard to give an exact price or even a range because it varies a lot by vehicle type. I'm paying about 600€/year for a small and older VW. But a bigger car doesn't necessarily need to be more expensive because the parts to repair it could be cheaper or it's less likely to get into expensive accidents due to break assistance. I'm also covered for accident…

I’m paying about $1700/year for $1m coverage for two newer sedans with a combined value of about $40k. You can’t buy more coverage than that in the US without going to an insurance agent. It’s available but as a specialty product aimed at wealthy people. Most car insurance websites won’t quote coverage that exceeds $300k or $500k. The legal minimum, which is what many (most?) people have is like $60k.

I’m sure some of this is due to the differences in our healthcare and legal systems. Ironically, it seems intuitive that Americans should have higher insurance limits than Germans, not the other way around.

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#248

Post by crdoconnor »

Clanan wrote: post #218
crdoconnor wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Instead of giving in to a gut reaction, you should read the paper. All research must get funding in one way or another. If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much. It makes sense to try and figure out what the funders would want the answer to be and see if the research matches that. If it does, shouldn't you be more skeptical? For example, if Ex…

Every patron of every piece of research is hoping to benefit from it. I certainly agree that a reader should consider the goals of the authors and backers, and I would hope the authors would make both clear. I just get piqued when intellectual laziness steps in and says "don't read this, it's funded by biased sponsors (i.e. humans)!"

>Every patron of every piece of research is hoping to benefit from it.

A) Not always. Bill Gates funding malaria research doesn't benefit him.

B) If you benefit from the research being accurate and truthful that's very different to only benefitting if the research yields a particular answer.

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#249

Post by astrodust »

felixk42 wrote: post #139
astrodust wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you realize that ripping DVDs and putting them up for streaming is pretty easy, everyone was doing it before Netflix was, compared to having a fleet of autonomous vehicles that can safely operate in a multitude of urban environments, something nobody has ever done before. You have to question the leadership of a company that's willing to throw untold billions and counting on a long-shot bet that they'll eventu…

Self driving cars have nothing to do with what Uber has been up to, and having a lot of cash isn't really a competitive advantage when your competitors are Google, Tesla and other car manufactures.

Uber has a lot of cash by taxi standards, but nothing compared to car manufacturer standards.

Re: Uber and Lyft drivers' median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds

#250

Post by astrodust »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #103
astrodust wrote: post #2

Uber is losing billions and their drivers are making peanuts. That sounds sustainable.

eventually they will raise prices, and hope everyone is out of business who competes with them.

There's so much irony here. The only way they'll be able to maintain a monopoly is with regulation, and they're the first to ignore regulations.

If in the future they get their coveted monopoly, won't it be sweet when someone flouts the rules and undercuts them?

Post reply on HN