I spent a day with an Uber, Lyft and Juno driver in NYC: here's how much he earned in 9 hours

[Recursion]

Not sure how the Ride Share Wars ended on DU, but some more grist for that mill:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/04/how-much-money-nyc-uber-lyft-and-juno-drivers-can-earn-in-a-day.html

Al Castillo, 33, drives full-time for Uber, Lyft and Juno in New York City.

He typically works six days a week, Monday through Saturday, for nine to 11 hours a day. And, as I saw when I spent a day shadowing him, he rarely takes breaks. After all, the more rides he completes, the more he gets paid, so "you want to be busy all the time," he told me. "Our time is money."

On this particular day, a Wednesday, Castillo worked about nine hours, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and earned $233 from 15 rides. Nine rides and $140 came from Lyft, while six rides and $93 came from Uber.

"That's a good day," he told me, especially considering he took more breaks than usual to accommodate my filming. On a normal day, he'll bring home about $250 after 9-11 hours of work, he said.

[True Dough]

1. That's not bad money

if you live in Casper, Wyoming. But I'm sure it doesn't go far in NYC.

None of those companies offer benefits, right? No medical coverage? No pension plans?

And 9 to 11 hours of work per day isn't what Americans should have to consider the new norm.

[Recursion]

5. That's $25/hour

The median hourly wage in NYC is something like $19

[True Dough]

6. Is it really?

I can't understand how anyone with a family to support could scrape by on that in a place with such a high cost of living. Having no kids would make it more affordable, or dual incomes.

Here's an excerpt from a patch.com article on the topic:

A family of two adults and two children in the New York City metro area would need to earn an average combined income of $124,129 per year — or $10,344 a month — to live comfortably.

Here's how the group breaks down that number:

Housing: $1,789 per month
Food: $908 per month
Child Care: $2,773 per month
Transportation: $589 per month
Health Care: $1,238 per month
Other Necessities: $1,088 per month
Taxes: $1,958 per month
In Manhattan, a family needs to earn $139,791, or $11,649 a month. In Brooklyn, it's $116,490, or $9,707 a month, and in Queens $129,330, or $10,777 a month.

https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/heres-how-much-you-need-earn-live-nyc


That's pretty steep!

[Recursion]

7. Two incomes helps

The median household income in the city is $52K, so the vast majority of New Yorkers don't "live comfortably" by Patch's definition. Child care is often provided by extended families (which means somebody else isn't getting an income, of course, so that cuts both ways) and New York is a Medicaid expansion state so the poorest third or so doesn't need to buy health insurance. I think the biggest thing is that shared housing is much more common in expensive cities than people who write articles like this seem to think.

Also, less than a third of households in NYC have children -- the whole "move to the burbs when you have a baby" plan does still seem to be a thing.

[WhiteTara]

15. I have trouble believing housing is only $2000

That's not much for that city.

[Recursion]

16. Seems to be pretty standard on Craigslist

Maybe a little low, but not very much.

https://newyork.craigslist.org/search/aap

[WhiteTara]

17. Wow. That was about the price of

a 2 bedroom apt when I was there in the 80s and 90s. I stayed at an "apt" in Manhattan, where the bedroom was the crawl space in the ceiling over the kitchen and that was almost $1000. Slope Park was $800 or $900.

If I could be around so many people, I could probably live there at that rent.

[Recursion]

18. Manhattan's going to be smaller and more expensive, of course

But you don't have to live there. There are the boroughs, and the burbs out past them. If you don't like being elbow to elbow you're not going to like Manhattan or inner Queens anyways.

[WhiteTara]

20. No, I can't live elbow to elbow

so we live in the country with 15 acres around us with about 150 houses in a 3000 acre parcel turned "sub-division" and our mortgage is $1100.

[ret5hd]

2. Minus gas?

Minus wear-and-tear on his vehicle?
Minus extra insurance costs? (surely he's purchased the insurance for a commercial taxi vehicle)

[hatrack]

3. Exactly - gross or net?

Additional paragraph from CNBC:

"Uber and Lyft both collect about 30 percent of all passenger fares, Castillo told me. Juno takes just 16 percent, but as an app it's not as popular yet, he added. Sure enough, we didn't get one call from Juno over the course of the day and, instead, flipped back and forth between Uber and Lyft."

Nowhere in the article does it specify whether the $233 figure cited is before or after subtracting Lyft & Uber's cuts. If it's before, then his take-home amounts to about $156, or about $17/hour.

[Recursion]

14. It does specify it, and it's after

$233 was the amount of money he took home. He doesn't know how much the passengers paid (drivers don't get to see that). He does know that in general the ride sharing companies take 30%.

[Recursion]

4. Yep, just like a medallion driver

Medallion drivers pay for those things too, only they make less money to pay them with.

[democratisphere]

8. What about fuel, tires, oil changes, repairs, wear and tear on the vehicle, insurance,

registration, carwashes, tolls and other expenses. Sounds to me like the drivers are digging a hole.

[Recursion]

9. Medallion drivers have to pay all those, too, and make less money

The question is not "does ride sharing have problems?" but "is it better or worse than medallion cab systems?"

[ecstatic]

10. Are they 1099 or w2? nt

[Recursion]

11. 1099, same as medallion taxi drivers (nt)

[cbdo2007]

12. Yep, it's a double edged sword...

On one hand, Uber is nice because it is cheaper than a taxi in many cases.

On the other hand, the driver doesn't make very much money.

[Recursion]

13. That's *much* more than a yellow cab driver makes

And it doesn't require $200K to buy a medallion.

[sarcasmo]

19. Minus fuel, repairs and insurance, he under about 125 dollars.

I drove for a living in the 90's and even when fuel was cheap, the operating costs would eat about half of your earnings.