Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

In 2018, New York City became one of the first cities to regulate the economics of app-based for-hire vehicles like Uber and Lyft, by establishing a minimum rate for drivers and a cap on the number of licenses for for-hire vehicles. To better understand driver pay and passenger fares in relation to the TLC’s minimum rates, this report offers an analysis of publicly available data from the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission’s High Volume For-Hire Vehicle (HVFHV) trip database. The report authors focused on HVFHV rides taken in February 2019, October 2019, April 2020, and April 2022 and analyzed approximately 50 million rides, exploring the passenger fares, driver pay, and commission fee companies are exacting from the fares per trip.