How does an hourly minimum wage work given that Uber and Lyft drivers get paid for doing trips, not for idling in their car waiting for rides? Does this minimum wage only apply to times when I have a fare? That would mean the real hourly minimum wage is less because I wouldn't have a fare 100% of the time. If it applies when I don't have a fare too, how much idle time between fares can I have before the minimum wage stops applying? What happens if I'm driving for both Uber and Lyft, and alternate services on each ride, so my "fare density" on each service is no more than 50% of each hour?<p>Edit: Why am I being downvoted? These are legitimate questions. I'm not criticizing the minimum wage. I'm genuinely curious as to how it actually works.
This is just the process of NYC trying to drive Uber and Lyft out of the city and to force them to be expensive and bad like the taxis that existed before them.<p>After a few years when they get bad enough they can start to blame the poor quality on "private corporations" and people will eat it up. Then they'll outright ban them and they'll be back to taxis.
Bureaucracy to solve a problem created by bureaucracy in the first place.<p>They should really have let the free market play its hand here. To take the pressure off medallion owners, add some 0.5% tax per ride and use the collections to buy out some medallions.<p>Setting a min wage is the wrong way to go about it. The whole point of progress is to make things cheaper.