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Happy New Year, Seattle: You May Kiss Uber Goodbye!
Among the many new laws taking effect tomorrow, Seattle has a new minimum-wage law. That law required ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft to dramatically increase what they pay their drivers. Seattle’s new minimum-wage law mandates that companies with over 500 employees must pay them $16.36 per hour or more. The KOMO article states that ride fares might increase up to 50% to satisfy that new law.
A spokesperson with Uber says fares will increase starting Jan. 1 when they add a new 61-cent surcharge to cover costs of paid sick time and a new mandated 75-cent fee which overall will lead to an increase in fares of about 24 percent.
It’s the first of three planned fare increases over the first three months of 2021 that could see fares be up to 50% higher by April 1 when the compensation for drivers fully phases in.
As usual, an effort to help low-paid workers results in fewer jobs for those workers and the Leftists who run Seattle really don’t care that their law hurts those Uber drivers. It makes them feel better, and that’s all that counts.
Seattle Uber riders, how will that 50% fare increase affect your ride-sharing behavior? Does it increase the chance that you might just buy your own car? The Seattle minimum-wage law might result in fewer riders, and drivers with fewer opportunities to earn a little extra money. Double-whammy! I wonder if Uber will be evaluating whether it’s really worth it for them to be in Seattle at all.
One more thing: The state-wide minimum wage will be rising on January 1, to $13.69 per hour. One has to wonder how many small businesses already slammed by the government COVID shutdown rules, will now give up the ghost, as their mandated wages increase their cost of doing business.
Published in Economics
The Los Angeles light rail system was built out over the past 25 years with one exception. It did NOT go to LAX. Wonder why ? The taxi companies. I think that stranglehold might be broken now but I left 4 years ago.
Seattle’s light rail system went from downtown to the airport first. Now, downtown is a wasteland and business travel is mostly gone, reducing traffic on that route. Mass transit usage is down all over, but the rail building project goes on, consuming money to build a boondoggle that no one will ride.
Seattle is now stocked with improved Uber bikes and moto-skooters. Let them Scoot!
How long do things like that last, especially in Lawless Seattle? When I lived in Phoenix I found some of those left in dumpsters.
And with increased minimum wage comes an increase for union employees by the same percentage. And an increase of money from union coffers to the politicians who increased the minimum wage. Quite a system.
They don’t even last in Orlando. I see electric bikes and scooters all over the place here, and no more than 2/3 of them are in what I’d consider operable condition.
Also, my 40 year old daughter who lives in Santa Monica was using one of the scooters there a couple of years ago and went head over heels. She was not seriously hurt but missed a family wedding because her face was so swollen and banged up.
Just out of curiosity, why not?
Why not (I mean, in cases where it would make sense)? Uber is awesome. Urban taxi commissions should be killed with fire.
Jinx! :-)
Jinx! No, I just feel uncomfortable with any random stranger showing up with his personal vehicle. It’s mostly our desire to load our own car on our schedule, no waiting. Ray decided a few years ago that he preferred leaving the car in the airport garage rather than an offsite lot, even if we get a discount offsite. When I was single, I used the offsite lot, with a AAA discount coupon. For some reason, I’m not comfortable either with the smartphone app. Until last year, we didn’t even have smartphones, and you can’t use Uber without one. Just us old folks, set in our old ways. Our vehicle is our Liberty, thank you.