Uber and Lyft are great services for riders. But for drivers? Not so much.
That s what Emily Guendelsberger found when she moonlighted as an Uber driver recently. Guendelsberger, a reporter at Philadelphia City Paper, found that Uber drivers are making relatively little money after accounting for expenses and Uber s cut, face the prospect of having their insurance cancelled in an accident and — thanks to recent price cuts — are having to take more rides and work longer hours to keep their incomes up.
Driving for UberX isn t the worst-paying job I ve ever had, Guendelsberger said. I made less scooping ice cream as a 15-year-old, if you don t adjust for inflation.
She added, If I worked 10 hours a day, six days a week with one week off, I d net almost $30,000 a year before taxes. But if I wanted to net that $90,000 a year figure that so many passengers asked about, I would only have to work … 27 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Over the course of her investigation, Guendelsberger drove 100 fares. Her gross earnings for those rides amounted to about $17 an hour.
But that was before she factored in her costs. Uber charges a $1 safe rides surcharge on each fare takes a 20 percent cut on the rest of the gross charge. And then you have to factor in the drivers own expenses — gas, car payments, regular maintenance. Guendelsberger calculated those costs to be about 51 cents a mile. All told, she figured that her net Uber earnings were only about $9.34 an hour.
And that may be understating things. If drivers have higher interest costs on their car loans or less fuel efficient cars than Guendelsberger s, their costs will be higher. And they face the prospect of having their insurance cancelled should they get in an accident while driving for Uber, if they ve not taken out a special policy.
Guendelsberger talked with other, more experienced drivers and found the were making more money — but only barely. Two in particular were netting about $10.53 an hour.
The reporter noted that her experience with Uber came after its price cuts in Philadelphia took effect in January. But as she writes, there s no indication that those cuts are going away. And Uber has an incentive to keep the rates low to encourage more ridership, she said.
Uber attempted to Guendelsberger s report by posting some information about driver earnings on its Philadelphia blog page. While the average Uber fare dropped from $14.71 in December, before the price cut, to $11.43 in March, the gross amount drivers were earning jumped from $16.06 an hour to $20.97 an hour.
But thanks to Uber s fees and their own expenses, drivers pay is nowhere near that high. As Guendelsberger points out in her report, if you factor in those costs, the average Philadelphia Uber driver is making around $11.12 an hour — which works out to be about $22,240 a year if you work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year.
Suffice it to say that if anyone s getting rich on Uber, it s not the drivers.
File photo: Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group
