“All too often, I realize after accepting a job that it was way too much time and cost for way too little pay.”
Bill Allred, gig worker on DoorDash, Instacart, and Uber Eats, Seattle
I’ve been doing gig work since 2013 on DoorDash, Instacart, and Uber Eats. I depend on the flexibility to feed my family, but I’m facing extremely low pay and high expenses, like car repairs and gas.
All too often, I realize after accepting a job that it was way too much time and cost for way too little pay.
Sometimes the mileage back to the zone we started in is nearly double the distance actually spent on the job, especially if we’re delivering out in the suburbs where there are no restaurants and we have to drive back to the city to get more work. Once, I had to zigzag across the city for delivery even though two of the dropoffs were just one block from each other — there’s no way to set it up different, we have to go where the app tells us or we’ll be penalized.
The mileage gets very costly, especially with gas prices as high as they are now.
And it adds up in ways you can’t always predict. I had to pay $2500 just for one replacement of my car’s battery.
Often, the time I spend waiting for a restaurant order is so long, you end up making less than minimum wage per hour. We end up depending almost entirely on tips to make a job worth it — and companies allow customers to deduct tips after the delivery for no reason. After all, the creators of these apps have used algorithms to filter tips from drivers.
These gig apps are making bank off our families, cars, and backs. Taxes are overwhelming when you have to pay all the extra self-employment taxes the companies don’t cover. The low pay of gig work is embarrassing to me and the family. Most of the customers are Amazon employees, but they don’t tip, and base pay is so low I’ve had to put off medical care and move because I couldn’t afford where I was living.
We need the PayUp policy now, because companies have gotten away with paying subminimum wages and stealing our tips for too long. Transparency is the key to every successful business — and the gig companies lack it at all levels.