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Uber drivers not so financially independent after all

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CIOL Writers
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A software engineer quits plush job to attach with Uber as a driver; a failed businessman finds livelihood as Uber driver; youth earns more as Uber driver than in a corporate job; stories like these have been floating around on social media for long now. It can be called a brilliant PR strategy, or ignorance of the public. But the reality, it seems, is far from the rosy picture painted.

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According to internal Uber calculations based on data spanning more than a million rides and covering thousands of drivers in three major US markets—Denver, Detroit, and Houston—drivers earned less than an average of $13.25 an hour, excluding expenses.

Uber has always stationed itself as a mass-employment generator, saying that drivers are as much its customers as its passengers are, and that its platform is a path to personal freedom and financial independence for many. In 2013, the company reportedly told a media house that the “typical” Uber driver takes in more than $100,000 in annual gross fares.

Uber says it doesn’t know how much drivers on its platform actually earn per hour, after expenses, and discourages employees from comparing these estimates to the minimum wage. But calculations show that in late 2015 that drivers earned approximately $13.17 per hour after expenses in the Denver market (which includes all of Colorado), $10.75 per hour after expenses in the Houston area, and $8.77 per hour after expenses in the Detroit market, less than any earnings figure previously released by the company.

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