Murphy Smith says he was unemployed for four years because of medical issues before becoming a rideshare driver in Eugene.

Driving allows him to work without triggering his severe asthma, Smith, 47, says. But without a set minimum wage, he says he works 12 to 16 hours a day to support himself.

Smith, who’s part of the rideshare drivers advocacy group Drivers Union Oregon, hopes pending legislation will help bring drivers like him a livable wage.

“There are a lot of people here in the Eugene area that don’t own a car, and once the buses or the public transportation shuts down, we’re who they call,” Smith said. “So we are an essential part of the workforce here.”

Advocates across several states say they’ve increased their activism recently because Uber and Lyft are pushing back harder than ever, as more cities and states pass laws requiring minimum pay and benefit requirements.

The rideshare industry is not as heavily regulated as independent taxi drivers or taxi companies, which are subject to rules on permitting, background checks, vehicle inspections and more, depending on the state or locality.

Rideshare drivers and labor advocates across the country are urging state and local leaders to require rideshare companies to provide benefits for drivers, including paid sick leave, minimum wages and workers’ compensation.

The companies have argued that establishing minimum wages for rideshare drivers would raise the price of rides for customers. Uber and Lyft are working to prevent some states from passing rideshare legislation through public campaigns and lobbying.

Oregon Democratic state Sen. Kayse Jama, who sponsored the bill pending in his state, said drivers told him last summer that their accounts were being deactivated without notice. Even drivers who were highly rated were locked out of their accounts, unable to earn any money, he said.

“A lot of those folks are mainly immigrants and refugees, so they don’t drive Uber as a side hustle or side gig,” Jama said. “This is their livelihood. This is how they feed their families. So, they brought the issue to my attention.”

Their stories inspired Jama to introduce legislation that would set a minimum wage for Oregon drivers, require a “just cause” for deactivation — or “lockouts” — of driver accounts, establish sick leave accrual, increase fare transparency, and create a new driver resource center. Neighboring Washington has a similar model, which was enacted in 2022.

Uber has opposed the Oregon bill, saying that the company needs more time to work with the state on drafting the measure. Uber spokesperson Zahid Arab, testifying against the bill, said the legislation would make rideshare “dramatically more expensive for Oregon riders, reduce access to affordable transportation options, and lead to fewer flexible earning opportunities for drivers.”

Jama said that he and his team have been negotiating with Uber and Lyft since the beginning of the legislative session, but there’s more work to do.

“At the end of the day, we want a bill that’s equitable to both the parties but also ensures that the drivers are getting the relief that they desperately need,” Jama said.

Lockouts are not exclusive to drivers in Oregon. Drivers in New York City first reported last summer periods of time when they could not access Uber or Lyft. The companies were limiting the number of active drivers in response to the city’s minimum wage rules.

Uber came to an agreement with New York City last July to reduce the lockouts, but drivers using Lyft were still seeing account deactivations months later.

Uber and Lyft did not respond to Stateline requests for comment.

New laws proliferate

Generally, rideshare drivers are paid a base fare for each trip, with additional money for the time and distance traveled. In some cities, drivers can also see the amount of money they’ll earn before accepting a ride. Passengers can choose to tip drivers, too.

But every location has different rates. For instance, the minimum pay rates for drivers in Washington state have increased to $1.34 per mile and $0.39 per minute, with a trip minimum of $3.45 per trip, according to the state’s labor department. In Seattle, the pay rates are even higher.

In places without set rules, drivers are subject to rates that depend on the location and availability of rides. These earnings are reduced by driver expenses, including gas, car maintenance and more.

In 2019, the nation’s first minimum wage pay rate for rideshare drivers went into effect in New York City. The minimum pay rates for time and mileage amount to drivers earning $17.22 an hour after expenses. It was a significant win for advocates in the city who had campaigned for better pay for years. New York later established minimum pay rates for drivers across the state.

Seattle in 2020 became the second city to require minimum wages for rideshare drivers.

In 2023, Minneapolis city leaders were also considering an ordinance that would increase driver pay, but Uber and Lyft threatened to leave the city entirely if it were to pass.

As part of a 2024 statewide deal after a long battle between Minnesota lawmakers and the rideshare companies, the pay rates for drivers rose to $1.28 per mile and 31 cents per minute on average for time spent driving passengers. As part of the deal, cities were banned from passing their own regulations on wages.

California, Massachusetts and Washington also have passed legislation to set minimum wages and rates for rideshare drivers over the past five years.

Massachusetts reached an agreement with Uber last year that guaranteed minimum earnings of $32.50 per hour to start, a portable health insurance benefit fund established last month and multilingual chat support coming later this year.

Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Washington also require rideshare companies to give drivers paid sick leave, workers’ compensation, paid family and medical leave, and other benefits.

In contrast, a California appeals court ruled in 2023 that transportation network companies could treat drivers as independent contractors, meaning they are not entitled to benefits in the state. The ruling upheld a voter-approved law.

Lawmakers in Connecticut and Wisconsin introduced legislation this year that would give rideshare drivers better pay transparency, as well as accident and sickness insurance coverage.

Earlier this year, Uber also sued Colorado over a law that requires the company to provide pay disclosures for drivers, arguing that the law violates Uber’s free speech rights. The law requires transportation network companies to disclose to drivers the total amount a passenger paid for a trip, how much is given to the driver and how much the passenger tipped.

Washington state compromises

For more than eight years, Ahmed Mahamud has been driving for Uber and Lyft to support his family in Seattle.
Driving for the rideshare companies is his full-time job, he said, and business in Seattle is good.

“I love it,” said Mahamud, 51. “You’re helping people when they have a need. So, this isn’t just a job. It’s a ‘win-win’ job. You’re helping your community, and at the same time you are paying the bills.”

But he lacks the same benefits as a salaried job. So he joined Drivers Union and is pushing for better pay, benefits and protections for drivers.

“We are not yet finished fighting against these companies because there are still things missing,” he said. “So, every single day, we are still fighting.”

In the absence of state and federal regulations, rideshare companies have too much power over the drivers they employ, said Drivers Union spokesperson Anna Minard. Drivers in Washington began to organize when they realized Uber and Lyft were changing how much money drivers would earn without letting them know, she said.

“To drivers, this seemed like an avenue for a lot of exploitation,” Minard said. “So, drivers organized from the get-go and tried various ways to get some rights enshrined in the law [in Washington]. Even though it’s contract work, people felt like they should be able to join together and fight for better pay and benefits and safety.”

In 2023, a year after rideshare drivers won minimum wage and other benefits, Washington lawmakers passed legislation that made it the first state to give drivers paid family and medical leave. Uber and Lyft supported the new benefits.

“These coordinated pieces of legislation reflect a true compromise between state lawmakers, labor leaders and transportation network companies to afford drivers historic new benefits while protecting the independence and flexibility they say they want,” an Uber spokesperson said in a statement to GeekWire at the time.

And last year, after Massachusetts drivers won new benefits that are rolling out over 2025, Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer, said in a statement, “We hope to engage other policymakers, drivers, advocates and stakeholders around the world to forge similar solutions.”

Advocates with Drivers Union helped pass a law this year in Washington that requires rideshare companies to be more transparent about which cars are eligible for special ride options, which are offered to passengers for higher fees.

In addition to the standard UberX ride, the app offers UberXL for larger groups, Uber Comfort for newer cars with extra legroom and other options that generally cost more.

The legislation, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson earlier this month, came after hundreds of drivers saw advertisements from Uber telling them to buy more expensive cars to get more pay on rides, Mahamud said. But in a year, many of those cars would become ineligible once newer cars are introduced to the market, leaving drivers with expensive car notes without the benefit of higher rates to cover it.

“The drivers really came together and said, ‘This is just unfair,’” Mahamud said. “Yesterday we’re told to buy these cars, and then before we can pay the car off, we’re taken out of the product class which was supposed to pay for it.”

The law also requires rideshare companies to provide drivers with a record of their trip receipts.

Drivers and advocates are going to keep fighting for their rights, said Nicole Moore, the president of Rideshare Drivers United, a driver-run organization of more than 20,000 drivers in California. Moore is a part-time driver in the Los Angeles area, and she usually works Fridays and Saturdays.

“They [rideshare companies] think that to be an employee in America means you have to work full time, and it has to be a scheduled five-day workweek,” Moore said. “Now, we as Americans have all these misconceptions about what employment rights and labor rights could actually mean for everyone.”

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Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.