Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics

New York City’s minimum driver pay standard, which became effective in February 2019, is intended to protect app-dispatch drivers from being paid less than the equivalent of the city’s $15 minimum wage, plus some paid time off. The standard provides a minimum pay for the time spent on a trip and a reimbursement for driving expenses. It is designed to compensate drivers for all their working hours and to account fully for drivers’ expenses during all of their working time.

We present here our preliminary research findings concerning the effects of this minimum driver pay standard. We examine the policy’s effects on driver pay and hours, passenger fares and company commissions, driver utilization rates, trip length, passenger demand, and passenger waiting time. We also investigate how the effects vary between peak and off-peak demand periods.