NYC Hails Delivery Worker Pay Raise As A 'Success' But Apps Disagree

Fair pay for food workers has lately been a hot-button topic. This past April, California's new law raising the minimum wage for fast food employees went into effect, while a wage increase for delivery workers started rolling out in New York City last year. Unsurprisingly, the corporate entities responsible for paying those higher wages were quick to push back against the new legislation.

The latter initiative, which saw the minimum wage raised to $17.96 an hour for couriers working for delivery apps, spurred lawsuits from delivery app giants GrubHub, DoorDash, and Uber Eats in an attempt to block the change. DoorDash, for one, released a statement warning of "unintended consequences ... [that] will undermine the very delivery workers it seeks to support." The companies ultimately lost their bid, and the wage hike officially went into effect in NYC in December 2023. In April of this year, that number rose to $19.56.

Now, the new law is being hailed as a success by city officials. According to the first quarterly report released by the NYC mayor's office and Department of Consumer and Worker Protection since the wage increase, delivery workers have seen a 64% increase in earnings per hour after tips as compared to last year, while their time spent waiting around for orders, which they previously were not paid for, decreased by 39%. Meanwhile, the total number of consumer orders increased by 8% year over year, waylaying concerns that slightly higher fees would deter customers from using the apps.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams expressed his satisfaction with the report in a press release, stating that he was "encouraged" by the findings of an overall income increase for couriers. DCWP Commissioner Vilda Vera Mayuga added, "The minimum pay rate has been a true success for our city — it has helped lift up some of our hardest working New Yorkers while still allowing the app-based restaurant delivery industry to grow and thrive."

But the delivery app companies themselves have a different opinion. Per Restaurant Business Online, the apps are accusing the city of "cherry-picking" data that supports the new rule. Uber Eats has reportedly referred to the law as a "job killer," citing a loss of 12,000 delivery workers since raising wages. Indeed, the city's report does address a 9% decrease in total workers on-call as compared to the same quarter last year, though the apps themselves have allegedly been limiting couriers' hours in response to the legislation (via NBC New York).

DoorDash is also claiming that the company received 850,000 fewer orders in the two months following the law's enactment. Despite the report's findings that customers' average order cost only increased by $0.76, DoorDash continues to allege that "higher costs [are] causing thousands of lost orders for Dashers to deliver and millions of dollars in lost revenue for local businesses." Still, consumer demand for these apps doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.