New York City food delivery tips suggestions are a recipe for disaster

opinion

editorial

From the Submission Editorial Committee

“If we don’t succeed at first, let’s make the problem worse,” seems to be the mantra of New York state legislators.

Last June, the City Council upended the delivery system by setting a minimum wage requirement for app-based food delivery at $17.96 an hour.

Apps like UberEats have rushed to recalibrate their pay structures to keep costs down, reducing the total number of daily drivers and prioritizing the most active drivers, making food a convenient way to make a few bucks. In addition to their other gigs, non-busy workers who may have been taking advantage of deliveries were put on ice.

Uber Eats and DoorDash also had to change their checkout processes to pass on higher labor costs to customers who pay higher fees and add the option to tip after an order is delivered.

Driver hours and tips have plummeted.

The same story happened in Seattle.

If customers can’t handle the shock of having fries delivered to their door, they’ll cancel or stop ordering.

The calculation is easy. Fewer orders means less work for drivers and fewer tips.

If the number of hours worked is zero, the “minimum hourly wage” is not very useful.

Now, City Councilman Sean Abreu (D-Manhattan) will cause more pain. Convinced that the changes to the app were an attempt to retaliate against workers (rather than an effort to comply with the new law), he introduced two bills. In that case, you can: 1) require the app to request a tip from the user before the delivery is made; 2) set the default minimum recommended tip to 10% and determine whether the customer is aware of it; You will have the option to opt out or manually change the tip amount.

Predictable outcomes are more than anything we have ever experienced. Fewer customers will use delivery apps, and more delivery drivers will miss work.

Rather than admit that government intervention has not produced the desired results, Abreu aims to do the same thing: ensure disaster for the drivers he is supposed to be helping.