DoorDash drivers and local restaurant owners shared their experiences during a panel discussion at Rincon Salvadoreño, Jamaica.
Photo courtesy of Risa Heller
Last week, the Queens Chamber of Commerce brought together app delivery drivers and local restaurant owners for a panel discussion about what they believe will be the negative impacts of the city’s new minimum wage on delivery workers.
The event on August 8th took place in Rincon Salvadoreño, a family-run restaurant in Jamaica, was founded in partnership with DoorDash. The food delivery service is one of several food delivery giants that have spoken out against the minimum wage increase. and introduced new fees for clients to offset the higher wages now mandatory in NYC.
According to the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, wages for over 60,000 delivery drivers in the city have increased significantly since the first tranche of the minimum wage in December 2023, and are now at $17.96 an hour.
Before the increase, drivers reported earning most of their pay from tips, as their base pay of $5.39 was only a quarter of the city’s minimum wage. In April 2024, the minimum wage was raised again to $19.56, and it is adjusted for inflation every year.
But grocery workers who participated in the panel said they were frustrated by cuts to their hours and tips as a result of changes in how the apps work and consumer behavior.
A dasher named Joseph said his hours have dropped. Although he works 40 hours each week, he only gets 32 hours of work to complete and spends more time waiting. The shift has forced him to go to Long Island in hopes of getting more work.
He sees the minimum wage change as a move away from the gig economy and a shift in food delivery to a “more formal labor economy.” But he doesn’t believe the industry needs to be “super-regulated” to give drivers an advantage.
In response to the new law, DoorDash changed the ordering process and removed the option to tip before ordering. While customers can still tip after ordering, some users say this option is more difficult to manage and amounts to a hurdle race.
Some Customers may also be less inclined to tip today because they know that workers are paid significantly more than they used to.
“The decline in tipping is primarily due to changes some apps have made to their interfaces to make it harder for consumers to tip,” the DCWP said in a press release last month.
The agency’s first quarterly report since the last pay increase came into effect also shows that the number of deliveries increased by 8 percent, but costs to customers only rose by 2 percent despite fee increases on the apps.
““We want to thank everyone in today’s discussion who shared with us how the policy is impacting their livelihoods, whether through a decline in small business orders or lower Dasher revenue, and we hope local policymakers will take note of these concerns,” said Thomas J. Grech, president and CEO of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, which represents 1,400 organizations.
“The New York restaurant industry has been hit hard by the impact of the city’s minimum wage for delivery workers,” said Elena Barcenes, owner of Rincon Salvadoreño, where the discussion took place.
However, the city says the impact on the restaurant industry has been “minimal” given the moderate increase in orders from April to June. However, the report also found that the average tip amount decreased by $2.64.
“I think there are still a lot of issues that need to be resolved when it comes to food delivery in the gig industry,” Joseph added.
