SPINNING THEIR WHEELS?
Food app delivery drivers busy amid pandemic, but earnings haven’t risen
Drivers for third-party delivery apps such as Uber Eats, Doordash and Grubhub experienced a flood of orders at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, as restaurants closed to in-person dining and patrons largely decided to enjoy their meals at home.
Carryout and delivery orders have surged, but the spike in demand for their services hasn’t resulted in a windfall, drivers said.
More orders initially meant higher pay for many, but as more drivers joined the apps, competition increased and customers seemed less willing to sign for a tip, drivers said. Services pay commission based on the cost of an order, but drivers said that many orders aren’t worth taking without a gratuity.
Doordash added 1.9 million new drivers between mid-march and September, a spokesperson said.
“I feel that there was quite an upswing
in people signing up for these services,” said Nate Vanderhoof, a 42year-old Uber Eats driver who lives on the Far East Side. “It’s fairly easy to make money. You go out and drive when you want, stop when you want. There’s no set schedule.”
Drivers said they are making just as much money as they did before the pandemic, despite a surge in business.
“It’s been better and worse,” said Alyssa Jones, 26, of Ashville. Drivers get “more offers, but no one wants to tip.”
Tips are crucial
Food delivery drivers for third-party delivery apps are independent contractors who get paid per delivery, making their salaries dependent on the volume of deliveries – and tips – rather than hours worked.
“I’m on a couple of the Uber Facebook pages, and that’s one of the complaints, that there’s a lot of ride-share drivers,” Vanderhoof said. “They talk about the good old days when there weren’t as many drivers, they were a lot busier and they would make more money.”
The apps said the total tips drivers received increased in 2020, according to their statistics. Across Grubhub and the Grubhub-owned Seamless, customers tipped an average of 15% more, company spokesman Grant Klinzman said.
“So if a diner was tipping 20% before, they tipped more than 22% during the pandemic,” he said in an email.
Order sizes, which also typically mean higher tips, also have increased following the coronavirus outbreak, he said.
Klinzman said the company doesn’t
release information on its pay rates, but stressed that Grubhub helps drivers calculate their pay rate through its website.
Paying the bills
Most of the drivers contacted for this story said they work part time, supplementing income from other jobs. A minority said they depend on third-party delivery services to pay their bills. Those are the drivers who said they struggle the most.
Jones said she started delivering for Grubhub, Ubereats and Doordash after her daughter was diagnosed with autism. Frequent and irregularly scheduled doctor’s appointments made a full-time job with traditional hours impossible.
“I couldn’t work a full-time job with her appointments, and she needed extra help at home,” she said.
Third-party delivery services afforded her the chance to work on her own schedule, but when asked whether she makes enough to pay her bills, Jones said, “It depends on the tips, but mostly no.”
Jones said she often is stuck working long hours now that customers are less generous, and she finds herself holding out for larger deliveries and bigger tips to make ends meet.
Vanderhoof drives for Uber and Uber Eats to supplement income from his primary job. But when he was unemployed for several months at the height of the pandemic, the apps were his only income.
“In an eight-hour shift, my goal would be to make a minimum of $100,” he said. But to achieve that, “I would usually go past” eight hours of work time.
Vanderhoof earned enough to pay his bills, but it was tight.
“I learned how to budget pretty good,” he said. “If I had big bills coming, I knew that I had to drive more, stay out longer and drive during the most opportune times.”
Even so, Vanderhoof said he likes the work and feels the money he makes more than offsets the cost of gas and car maintenance. Services pay a commission for each delivery, but drivers are responsible for gas, car repair and maintenance, and insurance.
Tracking expenses
Sarah Dygert, 36, of Victorian Village said she was able to make ends meet driving for Doordash full time by working out an intricate system. She tracks the location and hours she worked and the orders she received to identify the best times and places to work.
“If you’re willing to put in the work and keep driving and keep accepting orders, then it’s all based around when you want to work,” she said.
Dygert worked as a bartender and server for the District Pourhouse in the Gateway District near Ohio State University’s
campus. But the bar and restaurant closed when Gov. Mike Dewine shuttered most nonessential businesses in mid-march, and Dygert found herself unemployed.
She said the money she made delivering meals completely replaced her salary and tips from the District Pourhouse, helping her pay her bills and save a small amount of money once her obligations were met.
Richard Figley, 68, of Clintonville delivered for food apps before the pandemic as a supplement to his Social Security checks. He is one of the few drivers who said he subtracted the cost of gas and car repair from his overall income, and he was unimpressed with the results.
Figley is an Air Force veteran who works as a marketing consultant.
“If you take into account wear and tear on your car and everything else that goes into it, you come out making about $10 an hour,” he said. “It looks good because you have a lot of cash, but if you put it into an Excel spreadsheet (comparing expenses with revenue), you quickly find out that you’re not making any money.”
Volume vs. quality
The commission attached to a delivery depends on the size of the order, and drivers said they see more orders for inexpensive fast-food meals now that Ohioans are mostly staying home.
Drivers have different philosophies on small orders. Some take as many deliveries as they can, others hold out for the most expensive meals.
“Any opportunity is a good opportunity for me,” Vanderhoof said. “Sometimes it’s a super short ride where I’m only pulling in $3 for a couple miles. To me, that means it was quick, and I can move on to the next ride.”
Cassandra Flore, 36, of Gahanna takes a different approach, one she gradually honed in her nearly three years driving for Doordash and Ubereats. “I’m a single mom, and I needed a second job that let me work when it was convenient,” she said.
The search for a side gig led her to Uber, a ride-share service that pays
drivers a commission for each ride. The service introduced her to Ubereats a few years ago.
“I hated it at first, but then I really got into it,” she said.
“I’ve been doing it for so long, I learned tricks of the trade,” she said. “When I first started doing it, I thought you had to accept everything they sent you. I realized like a year later that you don’t really get penalized for declining trips.”
The services incentivize drivers to take every order, offering perks to those who don’t refuse deliveries. But drivers overwhelmingly said those perks aren’t worth it.
Doordash, for example, bestows “Top Dasher” status on those who accept the most orders. The service won’t let drivers take deliveries in certain neighborhoods with too many active drivers. But a “Top Dasher” can take deliveries anywhere.
Columbus, however, is so busy that neighborhoods are rarely off-limits for long, Flore said.
“The benefit is not good enough,” she said.
Customer complaints seem to have surged along with food orders, drivers said. While drivers aren’t financially liable if a customer says their food was cold or didn’t arrive on time and asks for their money back, too many complaints can get a driver kicked off the platform.
To ensure prompt deliveries, driver Jennifer Nelson, who delivers for Ubereats and Doordash, said the apps give drivers a strict schedule.
“When you’re given an order, you are given a time that you need to pick up by and then a time that you need a drop off by,” she said. “So both Uber and Doordash pretty much control the timing of everything.”
Despite the expansion in the ranks of third-party delivery drivers, the apps aren’t an option for everyone.
Figley, for example, decided the odds of contracting the coronavirus are too great a risk and stopped driving near the beginning of the pandemic.
“I’ve got some health issues, and if I got COVID, that would be really problematic,” he said. pcooley@dispatch.com @Patrickacooley
KAMPALA, Uganda – Ugandan opposition figure Bobi Wine said he will withdraw a legal petition that sought to overturn the victory of President Yoweri Museveni in last month’s presidential election.
Wine said Monday that he has instructed his attorneys to start the process of withdrawing the petition even though the country’s top court is set to begin hearing evidence after receiving affidavits in the case.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday took up a series of cases challenging federal regulations created during former President Donald Trump’s administration, including a hotly contested effort to cut funding to medical centers that refer patients for abortions and a rule designed to limit legal immigration.
Described by critics as a “gag rule,” the 2019 abortion referral provision drew condemnation from Democrats at the time and praise from anti-abortion groups that saw the move as a way to reduce funding for Planned Parenthood and similar entities. Federal appeals courts have been split on the rule’s constitutionality.
Supporters say the rule will ensure federal money isn’t used for abortions, while opponents say it would restrict the ability of women to obtain abortion counseling. The decision to take the case may give the new 6-3 conservative majority on the high court its first opportunity to wade into the abortion debate.
The Trump-era rule “is designed to target abortion providers to score political points,” said Alexis Mcgill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “The gag rule’s harm is felt most by those who have always faced systemic barriers to health care.”
The Supreme Court also announced Monday that it will take up a case about another Trump administration regulation that allows federal officials to deny green cards and visas to immigrants if they believe the recipients will receive public benefits like food stamps, Medicaid or housing vouchers.
Opponents said the regulation amounted to a wealth test for new immigrants.
The “public charge” rule was one of several efforts by the Trump administration to reduce legal immigration. Officials at the time said the rule was intended to ensure that those approved
for legal residency support themselves. A federal appeals court ruled against the regulation in December, dismissing that argument.
President Joe Biden already has begun to unwind both Trump policies, but he won’t be able to move quickly on either because they were implemented through a department-level rulemaking process rather than with an executive order that could be rescinded with a stroke of the new president’s pen. The court also could decide the constitutionality of the rules should a future president try to implement them again.
Trump effectively blocked clinics from receiving federal grants through the Title X program if they offered abortion services with other funds. Created in 1970, the program offers more than $250 million in annual federal funding for health services for low-income families and the uninsured. The money cannot be used to pay for abortion.
Trump stiffened the rules of the program by also barring referrals for abortion services. Since those changes, about one-quarter of clinics and other providers that had received federal grants to help the uninsured or low-income patients no longer participate, according
to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. Advocates say that has reduced access to contraception, cancer screenings and preventive care.
Other Supreme Court happenings Monday:
Election challenge
The court rejected a handful of cases related to the 2020 election, including disputes from Pennsylvania that had deeply divided the justices just before the election.
The cases the justices rejected involved election challenges filed by Trump and his allies in five states Biden won: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Other than two Pennsylvania disputes, the justices’ decision not to hear the cases was unsurprising but ends months of legal wrangling. The court had previously taken no action in those cases and in January had turned away pleas that the cases be fasttracked, again suggesting the justices were not interested in hearing them.
Justice Clarence Thomas called the cases an “ideal opportunity” to address an important question whether state lawmakers or state courts get the last word about the manner in which federal elections are carried out. And he called it “befuddling” and “inexplicable” that his colleagues were declining to weigh in.
“We failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence,” he wrote.
Florida-georgia water war
The court tried to inject some mystery into its second consideration of a long-running dispute between Georgia and Florida over water that flows from the Atlanta suburbs to the Gulf of Mexico.
Florida is seeking a court order forcing Georgia to limit its use of water from the Flint.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wondered whether Georgia could take some steps without incurring too much expense to help revive Apalachicola oysters. “How do we put a price on an environmental benefit like that?” she asked.
A decision is expected by late June.
Defamation suit against Trump
The court rejected an appeal from porn star Stormy Daniels, who sought to revive a defamation lawsuit she filed against Trump.
The justices did not comment in leaving in place a lower court ruling dismissing the case.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford,sued Trump for defamation after he called her claims of being threatened to keep quiet about a tryst a “total con job.”
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2018 and ordered Daniels to pay nearly $300,000 in attorneys’ fees.
Contributing: Maureen Groppe, The Associated Press
The fire likely started somewhere in the middle of the main floor of the home, (Columbus Division of Fire Battalion Chief Steve) Martin said, though he added that the damage is so extensive that it’s a hindrance to getting answers.
Nathan Kosof sat at his dining room table Monday and described how he would so often in the summer use the side of his backyard shed to play a game of peek-a-boo with the 4-yearold twin boys who lived next door.
As Kosof spoke – even with all the windows and doors of his own home closed to keep out the cold – the smell of smoke and tragedy from the fire that claimed one of those twins over the weekend still lingered in the air.
“Those boys are just so sweet,” he said. “It’s hard to believe one of them is gone.”
Columbus Division of Fire Battalion Chief Steve Martin said he still could not release the name of the child who died on Sunday after firefighters pulled the twins from the fire that consumed their family’s split-level home in the 3000 block of the Northeast Side’s Glenshaw Avenue about 7:45 a.m. Saturday.
Martin said he also couldn’t give the condition of the second twin, who remains hospitalized. A request for the name to Franklin County Coroner Dr. Anahi Ortiz, whose office will do the autopsy, had not been fulfilled by press time.
The fire likely started somewhere in the middle of the main floor of the home, Martin said, though he added that the damage is so extensive that it’s a hindrance to getting answers. Other than a mangled door and a few pieces of metal appliances, even little of the piles of debris in the yard were recognizable on Monday. The Martin said, is not suspicious.
So all that anyone really knows now is that an entire family is left in mourning and in need of so much. Kosof – who has been in touch with the father, whom he declined to name, and a family friend – has started a Gofundme account to try and help. By midday Monday, a little more than $11,000 had been raised.
The mother and father were both at work Saturday when the fire broke out, and three older children jumped from upstairs windows. The oldest child (authorities said she is 17; Kosof says she is 18) woke him up by pounding on the front door of his home and screaming that her brothers were trapped inside her home.
Kosof called 911 while running over, but rescue attempts were impossible.
“There was so much fire and smoke, there’s no way I could have gotten in,” he said.
He has texted the father and is working with a family friend to see what the family might need and how the Gofundme donations can help. Kosof and his other neighbors are also trying to gather clothes in proper sizes for the kids and parents. fire,
“You know, I told the dad in a text that we’re not neighbors here, we’re all family,” said the 39-year-old Kosof. His own 6-year-old son, Abel, ventured out of his bedroom as his dad was recalling the weekend’s tragedy.
Abel said that he used to play with the twins. “But I’m sad one is gone,” he said shyly before his dad quickly steered the conversation back to how there are so many ways to help the family and that it will be all right.
“Right, buddy?” Kosof said to Abel. “We’re here for them.”
There was a working smoke detector inside the home of the fatal fire, Battalion Chief Martin said.
Nevertheless, fire prevention officers canvassed the neighborhood Monday to offer to help homes that may need one.
Kosof has two in his own split-level, but he said if firefighters knocked on his door, he might take a third if they offered him one: “As we now know, tragedy can happen to anyone.”
To find the family’s Gofundme account, search for Nathan Kosof and fire. hzachariah@dispatch.com @hollyzachariah