Each day, almost a million New Yorkers and visitors take trips with TLC-licensed drivers. Riders travel to where they need to go safely and comfortably, with hard-working, professional drivers. The city couldn’t move without you, and the TLC wishes a very safe and healthy new year to you and your family in 2019.
Driver Income Rules
In early December, the TLC approved a landmark set of rules that we believe will very quickly improve drivers’ lives in New York City. These rules bring important pay regulations to the for-hire vehicle sector, a labor protection that has existed in the yellow taxi sector since the 1990s.
The TLC commissioned a report earlier this year from economists at the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs and the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley. The economists’ analysis found that 96% of drivers who work for the four large ride app companies in New York earn less after expenses than $17.22 an hour, the independent contractor of a $15 minimum wage. (Independent contractors pay additional payroll taxes, and do not get any paid time off.)
The TLC created rules to set a pay standard for this sector, using a per-minute and per-mile minimum trip payment formula. There will also be new pay rates for out-of-town trips. More than 75,000 drivers will see a raise of almost $10,000 a year, and more than $600 million yearly is anticipated to be invested annually into the local economy from this pay increase. This is money that will go into the communities drivers live in, as well as the businesses they frequent on the job.
There are important benefits for the taxi sector as well in these new rules. More wheelchair accessible taxi owners will receive payments of $14,000 a year when a car is placed on the road, and then $4,000 a year while in service. The TLC also recently doubled the payments that accessible taxi drivers make each trip, with drivers typically earning an extra $1,700 a year. The rules also reduce the maximum that garages can charge drivers for credit card processing, and will save the average fleet driver $1,000 a year.
We greatly appreciate all the feedback the TLC received from drivers, stakeholder groups, and other industry members in crafting these rules. These changes are just the beginning, and we are eager to hear feedback from you on the impact they have on your life and the larger industry.
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