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Uber, DoorDash and Grubhub sue New York City over $18 minimum-wage law
(www.engadget.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I am all for "gig apps" being required to pay minimum wage.
But the minimum wage in New York is $15 as far as I can tell. Why are delivery apps seemingly being required to pay a different minimum wage? I am not aware of any other case where the minimum wage depends on the profession.
I find this kind of policy very troubling. Would anyone be ok with accountants having a $25 minimum wage and teachers having $17 minimum wage?
My guess is it's to offset the lack of other benefits-- health care being a huge one-- that you lose when you sign up to be a gig worker, not a full-time worker.
And we already have different minimum wages for at least one industry: servers at restaurants. The economy isn't going to collapse if we put gig workers in their own category, too.
The article answers your question.
Unlike most jobs, contract jobs are taxed more and require the worker to pay the out of pocket to operate. In the case of food delivery workers, this means the gas or electricity to run their vehicle and the maintenance costs for said vehicle.