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For most markets where DoorDash operates, customers are prompted to tip on the checkout screen, with a middle option already selected by default. If they want to, they can adjust the tip later from the status screen while awaiting their food, or even after it\u2019s delivered. That\u2019s changing today; while blaming New York City\u2019s minimum wage increase for delivery workers, DoorDash announced that for \u201cselect markets, including New York City,\u201d tipping is now exclusively a post-checkout option.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The company said the change is intended to \u201cbetter balance the impact of\u201d new costs resulting from the city\u2019s change. It wrote that the new regulations will \u201cforce\u201d it to raise fees, so the move is meant to \u201censure our platform remains affordable for all New Yorkers.\u201d The same company recently started testing warning customers<\/a> their order might take longer when they choose not to tip at checkout.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n DoorDash\u2019s new policy and old complaints came after a new law in New York City increased the wages of delivery drivers to a minimum of $17.96 per hour, which a state appeals court upheld last week<\/a> after the company and others tried to have the law overturned. DoorDash has not been a fan and insisted at a hearing in April<\/a> and again in June<\/a>, that it\u2019s on the hook for more than the city\u2019s newly mandated $17.96 per hour, writing that NYC dashers \u201cwill now earn at least $29.93 per hour of active<\/em> time.\u201d The emphasis is mine \u2014 the company doesn\u2019t count the time Dashers wait between orders as on-the-clock work. Before the change, those workers earned a base pay rate of $7.09 per hour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n DoorDash pointedly claimed that its specious $30-per-hour rate is \u201ctwice NYC\u2019s $15 minimum wage for other workers.\u201d The NYC Consumer and Worker Protection Department explained in its study<\/a> preceding the new law that the higher rate accounts for the extra tax burden DoorDash\u2019s workers face as independent contractors. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The pay increase came after labor groups like Los Deliveristas Unidos and the Worker\u2019s Justice Project spent years advocating for higher pay. In their petition for the pay increase, the Deliveristas point<\/a> to the danger of delivery work<\/a>, as well as its associated expenses, which they said can be as much as almost $17,000 per year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n DoorDash says it\u2019s also pausing its \u201cDasher Priority Access\u201d incentive program that feeds higher-paying work to the best-rated delivery workers. Because of the NYC minimum wage guarantee, the company says \u201cthe benefits offered by this program will not apply.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n DoorDash says the new tipping approach is effective today, just days after NYC Mayor Eric Adams issued a release saying<\/a> \u201cthe apps should immediately pay delivery workers the minimum pay rate, as the New York State Supreme Court\u202fruled\u202fon September 28, 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n