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posted by mrpg on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the dont-do-it dept.

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).

Techcrunch has a summary


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday March 03 2018, @09:47PM (1 child)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday March 03 2018, @09:47PM (#647281)

    you can uber for a week, see that your not doing well, and stop.

    This might work for you, or even me, but most people forget about the cost of: insurance, tires, regular maintenance, irregular maintenance, depreciation due to miles driven, risk to health from being on the road, and other hidden costs that add up to far more than the cost of gas.

    seeing uber get shit on one more time?

    If you dig in my post history, I've been giving Uber shit for these reasons, for years. If, like 99.999% of Uber drivers, you've never read or maybe just never believed _my_ personal ranting, maybe this story circulating in the press will reach a few more of them and potentially improve their lives - got them to think for an extra minute about what they're doing and helped them to make a better choice.

    Uber is fine, they're legal to operate, let people do as they choose, but don't help Uber profit by hiding the true long term costs to their drivers. If seeing Uber get shit bores or annoys you, go read something else, that choice will hurt you far less than an Uber driver who ends up declaring bankruptcy and therefore gets bailed out by the rest of us.

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  • (Score: 1) by west on Saturday March 03 2018, @09:59PM

    by west (6884) on Saturday March 03 2018, @09:59PM (#647288)

    i get your position and dont think it is unfounded but i do not agree.
    alright if the uber bashing is indeed helping people then i stand corrected but, eh, i dont really see it.