A study conducted by the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research analysed revenue and costs for over 1100 Lyft and Uber drivers, with the conclusion that most earn below minimum wage for their state and about 30% actually lose money when all the costs of owning and operating their vehicles are taken into account.
"A Median driver generates $0.59 per mile of driving, and incurs costs of $0.30 per mile", "On an hourly basis, the median profit was $3.37 per hour".
Because actual vehicle operating costs are significantly lower than the IRS allowance of $0.54/mile, many drivers report incomes that are substantially lower that their actual incomes, leading to a large pool of untaxed income (although it is small for each driver).
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @02:38PM (1 child)
second reference in the pdf linked in tfa:
McGee C (2017) Only 4 percent of Uber drivers remain after a year says report. URL:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/20/only-4-percent-of-uber-drivers-remain-after-a-year-says-report.html [cnbc.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @03:11PM
This goes to another link which is partly hidden behind a website subscription,
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/how-uber-will-combat-rising-driver-churn [theinformation.com] (I didn't give them my email address).
Visible at the bottom of "theinformation" page is this line:
Correction: A prior version of this article said about 4% of people who sign up for an Uber driver account still drive for Uber one year later. It’s roughly 3%.