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app-based workers

Seattle’s Proposed App-Based Worker Pay Overhaul: What Passed—and What Didn’t

Seattle Council Bill 120775 proposed new app-based worker pay calculations and changes to transparency and flexibility protections, but it never became law.

By TheFinanceBase Team 3 min read
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Seattle did not enact the proposed overhaul. Council Bill 120775 would have changed how the city calculates minimum payments and adjusted worker protections, but it never received final Council passage. The existing App-Based Worker Minimum Payment Ordinance remains the operative law; it took effect January 13, 2024.

What is Seattle’s PayUp law?

Seattle’s App-Based Worker Minimum Payment Ordinance, often called PayUp, is the city law covering minimum payment, transparency, and flexibility protections for app-based workers. It was passed in 2022 and took effect January 13, 2024. It is codified at SMC 8.37. Seattle’s Office of Labor Standards describes the ordinance and its protections.

Did Seattle change delivery-driver minimum pay?

No. Council Bill 120775 was introduced in April 2024 to amend the ordinance, but the city’s bill history records committee passage as amended on May 9, 2024, no final Council passage, and a City Clerk “Retired” entry dated June 9, 2026. The proposal’s rates and other provisions therefore did not become the new law. The official bill record shows its status and history.

How would the proposal have changed pay?

The Council’s bill summary described an intended reduction in network companies’ labor costs while retaining a reduced minimum earnings standard. It proposed a standard of $19.97 per hour plus $0.35 per mile for engaged time, calculated across a company earnings period rather than offer by offer. That was proposed language, not an enacted pay rate. The Council’s summary outlines the proposed changes.

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The difference mattered in four connected ways:

  • Calculation: The proposal would have measured the minimum across an earnings period instead of calculating it for each offer.
  • Paid time and mileage: It would have changed when paid engaged time began for some offers, how incentives and bonuses were treated, and compensation for certain cancelled offers.
  • Information and records: It would have removed some details from upfront offer disclosures, extended the deadline for worker receipts from 24 to 48 hours, eliminated customer receipts, and changed the Office of Labor Standards’ access to company records.
  • Worker control and enforcement: It proposed shorter offer-review windows, changes to cancellation protections and enforcement, and allowing adverse action based on lower acceptance rates or limited availability.

What did Uber and DoorDash lobby for?

The bill record establishes what Council Bill 120775 proposed, but does not establish that lobbying caused its introduction. Axios reported substantial DoorDash lobbying in 2024 as delivery companies pressed for changes to the ordinance. Citing city records, Axios reported DoorDash spent more than $1 million on lobbying efforts that year, including more than $710,000 reported for January through June and over $292,000 in indirect lobbying in July. Those reported spending figures document lobbying activity; they do not, by themselves, prove it caused the proposal. Axios reported on the lobbying and the debate over Seattle’s law.

Positions on the law were contested. Seattle Council President Sara Nelson, at the time, called the result of rushing worker protections the “implementation of a flawed law” and framed the proposed changes as a response to fee and business concerns. DoorDash and other platforms described the existing standards as excessive or unbalanced. Worker advocates and Councilmember Tammy Morales opposed rolling back protections in response to fees they said companies had not justified. Morales said: “We should not repeal labor protections every time billion-dollar corporations hike fees on customers without justifying those fee increases.” These are attributed views, not independent findings about the law’s effects.

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Did the existing law raise fees or reduce orders?

The Council summary recorded reports from some stakeholders of higher delivery costs, fewer orders, longer waits between orders, and lower earnings for some restaurants and workers after implementation. Other workers said earnings were steady but they received fewer offers. These reports describe experiences; they are not a controlled estimate showing that the ordinance caused those outcomes. The company and worker arguments should be weighed as competing claims rather than treated as settled measurements.

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What enforcement and impact evidence is available?

Seattle’s Office of Labor Standards’ April–June 2026 resolved-investigations report says Uber Eats agreed to settle claims involving alleged violations of the app-based minimum-payment ordinance. The settlement totaled $4,386,682.28 in back pay, interest, liquidated damages, and civil penalties for 14,421 affected workers, plus $5,982.90 in fines to the City. This was a settlement resolving alleged violations, not a court finding or an estimate of the effect of Council Bill 120775. The Office of Labor Standards’ report gives the settlement figures.

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The Office of Labor Standards’ 2026 call for research sought a consultant to study working conditions before and after implementation, including transparency, uncompensated online time, multi-app work, and earnings changes on smaller platforms. The call describes planned research, not published results. The city’s research call describes the questions it intended to examine.

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