RIDEGURU
I read all about the controversy about MIT calling how much the job sucks. It's from May, but I thought I'd share as it seems that not many people have actually read about the research that was performed. TechCrunch does a good job summarizing it.
"The study, entitled The Economics of Ride-Hailing: Driver Revenue, Expenses and Taxes, and which was carried out by the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, surveyed more than 1,100 Uber and Lyft ride-hailing drivers combined with detailed vehicle cost information — factoring in costs such as fuel, insurance, maintenance and repairs — to come up with a median profit per hour worked."
I believe this was the offending and most disputed content:
"The upshot? The researchers found profit from ride-hail driving to be “very low”. On an hourly basis, the median profit was $3.37 per hour, with 74% of drivers earning less than the minimum wage in the state where they operate.
They also found a median driver generates $0.59 per mile of driving but incurs costs of $0.30 per mile; and almost a third (30 per cent) of drivers were found to incur expenses exceeding their revenue or to be losing money for every mile they drive."
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/02/mit-study-shows-how-much-driving-for-uber-or-lyft-sucks/
Comments
Gross wages of 4k a month? That's 1K for 25 hours a week. Sounds like Uber math to me. Nothing adds up.
MIT forgot mention the tight passengers who suck too !!!
Totally skewed numbers by a bunch of college student (many of whom are also disgruntled Uber/Lyft drivers) who were trying to generate sympathy for their cause. I'm not saying that rideshare pays well, because in most areas it's not sufficient to support a family, but in some cities, driven by knowledgeable drivers, during carefully computed hours, driven in more fuel efficient cars, by drivers with low insurance rates, and calculating actual numbers vs. base prices for maintenance and high interest rate car payments, the numbers aren't as horrible as people are led to believe.
Can I survive on Uber wages? If I chose to drive full time I could absolutely survive, but I rarely work more than 5 days/25 hrs a week, so my gross wages are only around $4k per month.