It's wise to look a gift horse in the mouth when it comes from an amoral corporation, but I suspect this is fairly honest, not because Uber is doing it out of the kindness of their own hearts, but because Uber wants to avoid regulation.
People who claim that regulation only makes things worse should take note of this: even the threat of regulation can be enough to get corporations to at least try to appear to do the right thing.
That said, I think there are two problems with this:
1. Long-term results of this will just be Uber trying to avoid regulation for as long as possible, while figuring out more and more clever ways to maximize profit at the expense of both drivers and passengers.
2. Any payment agreement which doesn't include health insurance in the US needs to be considered as significantly reduced. Back of napkin math ahead: Health insurance can run as high as $700/month and after taxes someone getting paid $21/hour takes home closer to $10.50, meaning some drivers will have to work ~65 hours/month just to pay for health insurance. Assuming Uber drivers drive 160 hours/month (which is conservative), paying for their own health insurance is a ~40% reduction in pay. This means that, pre-tax, that $21/hour looks a lot more like $12.60/hour would in a country with a reasonable healthcare system. Of course, there are some worst-case scenario numbers included here (most people's health insurance isn't that expensive) but at least some Uber drivers, particularly with expensive-to-treat preexisting conditions, are going to be receiving a much lower wage if health insurance isn't included. I suspect this singlehandedly is why Uber is even making the $21/hour offer: as a way to avoid regulation that would require them to pay for health insurance.
$5 that Uber is doing this to avoid regulation AND can use voodoo on their backend to surpress the effective daily wage paid to drivers by spacing out pickup requests.
People who claim that regulation only makes things worse should take note of this: even the threat of regulation can be enough to get corporations to at least try to appear to do the right thing.
That said, I think there are two problems with this:
1. Long-term results of this will just be Uber trying to avoid regulation for as long as possible, while figuring out more and more clever ways to maximize profit at the expense of both drivers and passengers.
2. Any payment agreement which doesn't include health insurance in the US needs to be considered as significantly reduced. Back of napkin math ahead: Health insurance can run as high as $700/month and after taxes someone getting paid $21/hour takes home closer to $10.50, meaning some drivers will have to work ~65 hours/month just to pay for health insurance. Assuming Uber drivers drive 160 hours/month (which is conservative), paying for their own health insurance is a ~40% reduction in pay. This means that, pre-tax, that $21/hour looks a lot more like $12.60/hour would in a country with a reasonable healthcare system. Of course, there are some worst-case scenario numbers included here (most people's health insurance isn't that expensive) but at least some Uber drivers, particularly with expensive-to-treat preexisting conditions, are going to be receiving a much lower wage if health insurance isn't included. I suspect this singlehandedly is why Uber is even making the $21/hour offer: as a way to avoid regulation that would require them to pay for health insurance.