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Seattle Food Delivery Drivers Earned More Per Hour After the 2024 Pay Law—but Demand Is Less Clear

Solo’s 2024 Seattle-area snapshot showed higher hourly earnings and base pay, but lower tips and fewer active workers. Later research found fewer deliveries offset higher pay per task for highly active workers—without proving a market-wide decline in customer demand.
From TheFinanceBase Team3 min to read
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Solo data reported by GeekWire showed Seattle-area delivery workers’ hourly earnings rose 8% after the city’s delivery-pay law took effect in January 2024. The same snapshot showed fewer active workers and lower tips, but it did not directly measure customer orders. A later study found that, for highly active workers, higher pay per delivery was offset by completing fewer deliveries. The evidence points to a trade-off—not proof that the law caused a broad decline in customer demand.

What the 2024 Seattle-area figures show

GeekWire’s March 4, 2024 report relied on data provided by Solo, a software company serving independent contractors. Solo reported that, after Seattle’s delivery-pay law took effect:

  • Hourly earnings rose 8%.
  • Base pay calculated using time and distance rose 38%.
  • Tips fell 16%.
  • The number of active workers on platforms was about 15% lower in February than in the year-earlier period.

These are separate measures: hourly earnings are not the same as base pay per task, and neither is the same as monthly income. The active-worker figure is also not a count of customer orders. Solo’s data covered the Seattle area, not only the city limits where the ordinance applied, and January and February are normally slower months for food delivery. The figures therefore offer an early snapshot, not a city audit or a clean measure of how the law changed customer demand. GeekWire’s report

What the pay law changed—and why customers saw fees

Seattle’s ordinance took effect in January 2024 and set minimum payment for app-based delivery work based on time and distance. Platforms responded with added customer fees and changes to tipping prompts, according to GeekWire. The report described fees of about $5 per order at the time; that is a reported 2024 condition, not a current or universal price.

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Platforms also made claims about order volume. Uber said its Seattle orders fell 30% over a six-week period, while DoorDash said it saw 30,000 fewer orders over a two-week period after the law and new fees. Those figures came from the companies, as reported by GeekWire; they were not presented as independently audited counts. GeekWire’s coverage of platform statements

How later research changes the picture

A later NBER working paper, Delivering Higher Pay? The Impacts of a Task-Level Pay Standard in the Gig Economy, examined a different period and a different worker sample using cross-platform, trip-level activity data. It compared workers whose delivery activity was concentrated in Seattle before the reform with workers active elsewhere in Washington.

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The paper’s abstract says the findings are consistent with free entry of drivers reducing the rate at which workers find tasks until expected earnings move back toward their pre-reform level. Its summary reports that highly active incumbent workers completed fewer deliveries per month, offsetting higher pay per task, so monthly earnings did not rise correspondingly. This does not turn the Solo snapshot into a direct order count: the studies measure different things, cover different samples, and answer different questions. NBER working paper

What Seattle workers earned before the law

Seattle’s Office of Labor Standards summarized two reports on delivery workers’ 2022 net earnings. The city’s summary says the reports found earnings substantially below, around half of, or below half of employee minimum wage, while also noting that the studies used different data-collection and measurement methods. That is useful pre-law context, but it should not be treated as one precise baseline that can be compared directly with Solo’s post-law hourly figure. Seattle Office of Labor Standards report

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What the evidence can—and cannot—answer

Question What the evidence says What it does not establish
Did hourly pay rise? Solo reported an 8% increase in Seattle-area hourly earnings in its 2024 comparison. A city-audited effect or a lasting increase in every worker’s take-home income.
Did pay per delivery rise? Solo reported a 38% increase in time-and-distance base pay; later NBER findings also describe higher pay per task. That every worker earned more per month.
Were there fewer orders? Uber and DoorDash reported declines in their own order counts for specified periods. An independently verified, market-wide customer-demand decline. Solo’s active-worker count does not measure orders.
Did workers complete fewer tasks? The NBER summary reports fewer monthly deliveries for highly active incumbent workers in its analysis. The same result for every worker or the same population measured by Solo.

Solo CEO Bryce Bennett interpreted the pay allocation this way: “This would suggest that due to the new law, companies are loading most of the required pay into the distance/time calculation for orders.” He also warned: “There will be better pay if you can get on these platforms — but the ability to get on the platforms and earn may become fewer and farther between,” These are Bennett’s interpretations, not independent findings about cause and effect. GeekWire interview and report

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