"Minimum wage" is one of those odd concepts that *seems* to have an intuitive definition, but the harder you think about it, the more complicated it gets.

I'm talking about how gig-work platforms define workers' wages in the first place. This is a very salient definition in public policy debates. Gig platforms facing regulation or investigation routinely claim that their workers are paid sky-high wages. During the debate over California's Prop 22 (in which Uber and Lyft spent more than $225m to formalize worker misclassification), gig companies agreed to all kinds of reasonable-sounding wage guarantees:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/14/final_ver2/#prop-22

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The fact that Uber can manipulate the concept of a minimum wage in order to claim to pay $21.12/hour to drivers who are making $2.50 per hour creates all kinds of policy distortions.

Take Seattle: in 2024, the city implemented a program called "PayUp" that sets a "minimum wage" for drivers, but it's not a real minimum wage. It's a minimum payment for every ride or delivery.

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A new National Bureau of Economic Research paper analyzes the program and concludes that it hasn't increased drivers' pay at all:

https://www.nber.org/papers/w34545

To which we might say, "Duh." Cranking up the sum paid for a small fraction of the work you do for a company will have very little impact on the overall wage you receive from the company.

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However, there *is* an interesting wrinkle in this paper's conclusions. Drivers aren't earning *less* under this system, either. So they're getting paid more for every delivery, but they're not adding more deliveries to their day. In other words, they're doing less work and then clocking off:

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/minimum-wages-for-gig-work-cant-work.html

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A neoclassical economist (someone who has experienced a specific form of neurological injury that makes you incapable of perceiving or reasoning about power) would say that this means that the drivers only desire to earn the sums they were earning before the "minimum wage" and so the program hasn't made a difference to their lives.

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Anyone else looks at this situation and understands drivers only did this shitty job out of desperation. They had a sum they *needed* every month in order to pay the rent or the grocery bill. They have lots of needs besides those that they would like to fulfill, but not under the shitty gig-work app conditions. The only reason they tolerate a shitty app as their shitty boss at all is that they are desperate, and that desperation gives gig companies power over their workers.

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In other words, Seattle's PayUp "minimum wage" has shifted some of the expense associated with operating a gig platform from workers back onto their bosses. With fewer drivers available on the app, waiting times for customers will necessarily go up. Some of those customers will take the bus, or get a livery cab, or defrost a pizza, or walk to the corner cafe.

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When Toronto grappled with the brutal effect gig-work taxis have on the city's world-beatingly bad traffic, Uber promised to pay its drivers "120% of the minimum wage," which would come out to $21.12 per hour. However, the *real* wage Uber was proposing to pay its drivers came out to about *$2.50* per hour:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/29/geometry-hates-uber/#toronto-the-gullible

How to explain the difference? Well, Uber - and its gig-work competitors - only pay drivers while they have a passenger - or an item - in the car.

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For the gig platforms to win those customers back, they will have to reduce waiting times, and the most reliable way to do that is to increase the wages paid to their workers.

So PayUp isn't a wash - it has changed the distributional outcome of the gig-work economy in Seattle.

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Drivers have clawed back a surplus - time they can spend doing more productive or pleasant things than cruising and waiting for a booking - from their bosses, who now must face lower profits, either from a loss of business from impatient customers, or from a higher wage they must pay to get those wait-times down again.

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But if you want to *really* move the needle on gig workers' wages, the answer is simple: pay workers for *all* the hours they put in for their bosses, not just the ones where bosses decide they deserve to get paid for.

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However, there *is* an interesting wrinkle in this paper's conclusions. Drivers aren't earning *less* under this system, either. So they're getting paid more for every delivery, but they're not adding more deliveries to their day. In other words, they're doing less work and then clocking off:

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/minimum-wages-for-gig-work-cant-work.html

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"Minimum wage" is one of those odd concepts that *seems* to have an intuitive definition, but the harder you think about it, the more complicated it gets. For example, if you want to work, but can't find a job, then the minimum wage you'll get is zero:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200625043843/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-06-24/forget-ubi-says-an-economist-its-time-for-universal-basic-jobs

--

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/17/no-piecework/#no-justice

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That's why politicians like Avi Lewis (who is running for leader of Canada's New Democratic Party) has call for a jobs guarantee: a government guarantee of a good job at a socially inclusive wage for everyone who wants one:

https://lewisforleader.ca/ideas/dignified-work-full-plan

(Disclosure: I have advised the Lewis campaign on technical issues and I have endorsed his candidacy.)

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"Minimum wage" is one of those odd concepts that *seems* to have an intuitive definition, but the harder you think about it, the more complicated it gets. For example, if you want to work, but can't find a job, then the minimum wage you'll get is zero:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200625043843/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-06-24/forget-ubi-says-an-economist-its-time-for-universal-basic-jobs

--

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/17/no-piecework/#no-justice

1/

Take gig work: the rise of Uber and its successors created an ever-expanding class of workers, misclassified as independent contractors by employers, seeking to evade unionization, benefits and liability. It's a weird kind of "independent contractor" who gets punished for saying no to lowball offers, has to decorate their personal clothes and/or cars in their "client's" livery, and who has every movement scripted by an app controlled by their "client":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/02/upward-redistribution/

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That's true, but livery cab drivers have lots of ways to influence that number. They can shrewdly choose a good spot to cruise. They can give their cellphone numbers to riders they've established a rapport with in order to win advance bookings. In small towns with just a few drivers - or in cities where drivers are in a co-op - they can spend some of their earnings to advertise the taxi company. Livery drivers can offer discounts to riders going a long way.

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@pluralistic In fairness, I'd suggest there's not much daylight between the two Cab driving was also institutionalized wage-stealing. Really just last generation Uber without the GPS. I mean, renting the cab medallion was a thing. And the cab. Let's see if Uber rolls out car rentals at some point (if they haven't already). Or makes their platform a subscription model for drivers.

@jmcrookston Not every cab network featured or even tolerated medallion rental. Many drivers owned the car and the medallion, and many cab companies were organized as co-ops.

@jmcrookston Cabs in Ottawa are all unionized.