$23/HR Delivery Pay

Phil: Also what we have to talk about is there's a fight going on now to pay food delivery workers $23 an hour. So in New York City, there are 60,000 app-based food delivery workers, 60,000 people. And what they're talking about is certainly during the pandemic, everybody's getting delivery, everything, now they're not getting delivery. And you know, this group wants to, you know, up it to, to get $23 an hour not including tips by 2025. And I just have to wonder if the price does go to, to that amount of money, 23 bucks an hour, whether or not there's gonna be a lot of people who stop delivering just cuz they can't afford to pay that. Right now, on average they make about 14 dollars and 18 cents an hour. So we're talking about a significant increase. Do you think that this is gonna kill the, the whole idea of delivery by raising these hourly wages? 

Sally: Well, I'm not sure that it will kill it, but yes, these, you know, we, there are, there are consequences for that. And you know, we've heard from some of the CEOs of these app delivery companies that, you know, that they would have to rethink their services, cut back on services, raise prices, but then we also have to think about, you know, about people. And we have to think about that. You know, everyone deserves to make a living wage. And thinking about people that are, you know, working so hard, especially these delivery workers, you know, who we've seen in, you know, one of our most difficult times in this country during a pandemic, what would we have done without these people? And many of these people are still living in poverty because they are not making a living wage. And to add to that, you know, part of that $23 an hour, there is a portion that's just under $2 that would, would allow for them to have some workers' compensation. So as a contract employee for an app delivery based company, you don't have the same benefit as a regular full-time employee. So with, with that raise, you would also get the work workers' comp. 

Phil: Yeah. And also it can be a dangerous job if you take a look this year or since 2020 in New York City alone 33 restaurant delivery workers have been killed. Whether people wanna steal their bikes or I guess steal their food or whatever else, but it's amazing to me, you know, and we don't have the amount of workers that have been attacked or robbed have their expensive e-bikes stolen but just 33 people getting killed. It just doesn't make sense. And I, and I don't think that the answer is gonna be robots. You know, everybody's talked about drones and robotic delivery and yes, to your point, everybody deserves a living wage, but somebody's gonna have to pay for this. And that means that when you're, you know, gonna be watering from Uber Eats or GrubHub or whatever else, you're gonna see some charges there.