According to a new paper by MIT, the average Uber driver makes less than $4 an hour, with 74% of drivers earning less than minimum wage.
The paper used third-party survey data collected from 1.1k drivers, and was almost immediately disputed by Uber’s in-house economist Jonathan Hall, who accused the authors of a “major error” in their methodology.
Then Dara Khosrowshahi came in hot with a Twitter burn
The usually stoic Uber CEO also called out the institution, tweeting, “MIT= Mathematically Incompetent Theories…”
Boo, 2/10.
Hall argues that, due to unclear survey wording, respondents may have misreported how much time they spend working for ride-hailing services. A flaw he believes could skew the hourly rate MIT reported by nearly 60%.
And MIT is listening
Stephen Zoepf, the lead researcher on the project, has agreed to “revisit” the study based on Uber’s discrepancies, but asked something of the ride-hailing service in return:
- “Help make an open, honest, and public assessment of the range of ride-hailing driver profit after the cost of acquiring, operating and maintaining a vehicle.”
- “Transparently present the difference between actual and tax-reportable vehicle expenses used in the business.”