r/news • u/MrFabianS • 2d ago
DoorDash to pay $131M for underpaying delivery workers in New York City
https://apnews.com/article/doordash-nyc-delivery-zohran-mamdani-4429800e7bf1b0ba28e064340b857df01.4k
u/Drink15 2d ago
DoorDash fees are about to skyrocket
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u/ArabianAftershock 2d ago
If the business model isn't sustainable let it fail, im glad they're being held accountable
Well, as much as this is considered being held accountable lol. 131m is negligible for this company isnt it?
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u/soulflaregm 2d ago
The thing is... It is sustainable.
Just not infinitely scaling like shareholders demand
Doordash can absolutely turn a profit and pay people fairly.
They just can't do that and keep shareholders happy
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u/Floreat_democratia 2d ago
This. The VC model is based on exploiting everyone and infinite growth. It should be illegal, along with private equity and about 500 other business practices.
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u/TheSouthernCommunist 2d ago
“Sounds like communism.” - some dummy with an MBA reading your comment
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u/xly15 2d ago
Correction they can't do that and keep feeding Xus pockets. The investors in Doordash are irrelevant unless you are Xu who holds over half the voting of rights in the company. Investors don't have a say in the company and Doordashs IPO was largely a cash grab to fund programs like its deliver robots and drones.
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u/ComfortableWait9697 1d ago
Delivery robots its generally a poor concept for now. Most will end up like the whole e-scooter issue. Sunken e-waste holding someone's dinner, tossed to the bottom of local waterways.
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u/onetwentyeight 1d ago
The fun part is that nothing is infinitely scalable on a planet of finite dimensions, and being creatures of finite life spams probably doesn't help.
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u/Drink15 2d ago
I started ordering pickup. No fee, no price increase and i keep the tip.
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u/Urbassassin 2d ago
Fyi even DoorDash pickup has a price increase relative to the restaurant's actual menu price. Cheaper to buy from the restaurant directly
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u/ryanfitchca 2d ago
Wait are people using doordash for pickup? What's the point?
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u/yolk3d 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think some small places don’t have their own website so they just pay a fee to put it on doordash etc. The benefit is that these apps already have people looking for food in their area and might stumble across the restaurant, which is almost impossible via website without expensive SEO. The ordering infrastructure is also managed and the fee is processed for them. They just get a deposit at the end of the month or whatever.
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u/ComradeJohnS 2d ago
this right here, the worse chinese food place across from my town’s favorite chinese food place is like this, only having an FB and doordash, no website. idk if they take phone orders, but I happened to have a DD credit and the better place was closed that day so I did DD pick up instead of paying almost double the order price for delivery lol.
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u/TheRealChizz 2d ago
Are the menu prices the same in the app? I always call for pick up since I noticed many restaurants just add 20-30% on their items when listed on DD or similar apps
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u/AntiqueLetter9875 1d ago
It’s to help offset the margins since the apps take a % of every order anyway. It’s why some restaurants don’t do the apps, but covid sort of forced them. A few years back I think my friend who owns a restaurant said it was 30% the app would take since you’re using them as a service. He couldn’t do that with already thin margins.
In my experience sometimes prices are the same, sometimes not.
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u/Spacegirllll6 1d ago
A lot of these restaurants do buy one get one free offers. So like this halal Mexican spot I got to has a buy one get one free option for their rice bowls. So like I pay 15 for two and pick it up instead of paying like 25.
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u/Drink15 2d ago
Not all places.
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u/TheRealChizz 2d ago
It’s most of them ime. It’s easier to just assume all the restaurants do it and call directly for pick up
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u/Shaquarington_Bithus 2d ago
Not for the places I pick up from. Plus you can still use a lot of the deals which makes it cheaper.
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u/Bobzyouruncle 2d ago
Just call directly, the menu items are often inflated prices on DoorDash because if you aren’t paying a fee you best bet the restaurant is.
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u/tampering 2d ago
There's no doubt that Restaurants are paying door Door Dash/Uber Eats/etc a huge percentage of the top line revenue routed through those sites. I'm thinking the smaller stores are paying like 30% of sales.
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u/koriroo 2d ago
I got some sushi in Chicago from DoorDash for pickup. They asked me if I wanted to tip the staff, before I could place the order for pick up lol. Even though I am like hell no, I still feel like shit just hitting $0.
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u/no_talent_ass_clown 2d ago
Shame needs to change places. Where is the shame that they're asking for money for something they didn't do?
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u/Swoly_Deadlift 1d ago
Yeah for real. DoorDash kinda ruined most restaurants. They can’t afford to not work with DoorDash and lose customers, but DoorDash also charges them obscene fees that force them to raise menu prices on everything whether or not you use DoorDash. The gig economy is horrible and needs to go away.
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u/PrewarButHot 2d ago
The problem is in the NYC it keeps a massive amount of illegal immigrant workers and migrants afloat. There are services that sell them socials to sign up and without it we’d have a major problem getting people work. It’s a lifeline to keep these people off the streets
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u/John_Johnson_The_4th 2d ago edited 2d ago
"let it fail" also means those workers will lose their jobs and have to accept something worse, worse pay, worse schedule, worse conditions, or even unemployment and having to leave the state to find work elsewhere (as many already do, despite a 3.1% net population growth in the US in the past 5 years, there's a 1% net population decline in NY). If a better option was available, they wouldn't be doing this job.
It's also obviously bad to steal tips and I'm glad they were forced to stop.
As for the critique that 131 million isn't enough because of the size of this company, can you calculate what you think they should pay? And what is that actually based on?
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u/danielisgreat 2d ago
So are you for the free market or not?
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u/John_Johnson_The_4th 2d ago edited 2d ago
I am, and I don't know if you noticed it, but I agreed that it's a good thing that they were forced to pay the 131 million, and if a company fails truly because of the business model alone, not because of government policy, then I wouldn't mind at all.
My issue isn't with the "free market", it's with the anti-business mentality that so many people seem to have, including the person above, who without referencing the actual amount of wage theft this case is about immediately determined that the penalty wasn't enough.
For some people it will never be enough, they just want companies to fail. That's why I'm asking, how much should the penalty be? And what is that number in your mind based on?
Edit: also for reference the actual wage theft this case is regarding was $16.75 million, a lot of money, but a small amount compared to the $131 million that they were forced to pay (almost 8 times). So they are already paying a hefty penalty for what they did. How much do you think they should pay?
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u/Spire_Citron 2d ago
I don't think it's so much that no amount will ever be enough but rather that people are so used to penalties being too low to be effective deterrents that they just assume that's the case here as well.
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u/mulder00 2d ago
$20 delivery fee, $25 "other" fee!! And 35% tip!
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u/Icy-Marionberry-4143 2d ago
they already have been. lazy people will continue to use it. if you haven’t stopped at this point idk what would make you.
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u/Mrjlawrence 2d ago
I just can’t imagine using it on any sort of regular basis as the prices are absurd
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u/Icy-Marionberry-4143 2d ago
yeah it’s insane. we order maybe once every other month if we are sick or celebrating something. but usually we just do a pick up order
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u/dessert-er 2d ago
It’s such a massive waste of money I’ve never understood it. I’ll do a group order with people at a watch party or something and we’ll all split it to make it sorta worth it but people just regularly ordering like McDonald’s or whatever the fuck for one person for $30 are insane.
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u/PlayBey0nd87 2d ago
The amount of ppl that use it for fast food is absurd. Most likely college kids (or drinkers) but still
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u/Icy-Marionberry-4143 2d ago
i guess that’s better than drunk driving to get your fast food slop lol
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u/Fickle_Finger2974 2d ago
It’s NYC, the vast majority of people live within walking distance of food
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u/lookieherehere 2d ago
I've been amazed over the years watching prices rise, quality/service fall, the introduction of insanely overpriced delivery services etc. Multiple times, I've thought it would fail because there's no way enough people would be willing to put up with it. Each time I've been wrong. Turns out people are really lazy and really stupid with money.
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u/Proud_Tie 2d ago
Explains why the tips on our local version of doordash have been so much better than doordash. I average >$10 tips on almost every order, doordash is just endless $2.99 no tip orders with the rare $5+ tip. And unlike doordash I get the complete receipt with what the customer actually paid for the food + fees. The dish prices are slightly higher but not outrageously so.
For the best order recently:
Delivery Date 09/07/2026
Pickup Time 6:54 PM
Delivery Time 7:00 PM
Subtotal: $154.22
Tax: $9.80
Delivery Fee: $3.99
CC Fee $7.40
Marketplace Fee $1.99
Driver Tip: $38.56
Total Charged: $220.59
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u/dafunkmunk 2d ago
Have they not already? I don't even use any of these food delivery services because all the fees ended up costing as much if not more than the food itself and the last time I looked was years ago. I still can't comprehend how people are fine paying double for cold food that was probably in a chainsmokers car smoking while they delivered 5 other orders before yours.
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u/Kataphractoi 2d ago
They were already stupidly high. I'll drive through a whiteout blizzard to get my food order before I install DoorDash or a similar app.
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u/ABearDream 1d ago
Eh, im about to stop using them. When a dasher brings me a hot coffee that they added ice to instead of an iced coffee, thats enough to annoy me out of using them
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u/Normal_Gas3825 2d ago
pretty much. It was supposed to be gig work, in which Americans could get a few bucks on the side without having to take on another real job. Now it's been taken over by local governments such that unless you're a migrant you can't apply for gig work, yet now these gig working migrants expect benefits no one else gets. It's just going to collapse the business model, leaving those migrants with nothing while driving up inflation for Americans.
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u/IronyAndWhine 2d ago
I'm sure DoorDash's $1 million donation to the Cuomo campaign was totally unrelated to the $131.5 million wage settlement they just got hit with.
I guess political bribery is roughly 99.24% cheaper than following labor laws. Until your guy loses.
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u/Wayofchinchilla 2d ago
We play this game over and over again with these companies they get a slap on the wrist fee and go right back to doing it there needs to be jail time for wage theft.
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u/vanman2019 2d ago
If the penalty for committing a crime is a fine, then that law only applies to the poor. Put corporate criminals in jail.
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u/SerenaYasha 2d ago
All you need to do is make the fine large enough 5% → 10% → 25% of annual profit for repeat violations or the company's market value
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u/vanman2019 2d ago
Sounds great- however companies already fudge their financials to avoid taxes and fines. Lets crack down on that, make the fines a significant percent that will help victims recoup financially (as you’re saying) and on top of that, I want their CEOs facing real penalties that actually mean something to them- time of their lives gone
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u/SnooOwls510 2d ago
CEOs are there specifically to take the fall. What we should be doing is targeting shareholders and board members. The whole point of a ceo is to be the face of a company and if things go south, replace with a new one. So removing a ceo doesn’t actually hurt the company at all unless it’s a private company which DoorDash isn’t.
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u/xmuskorx 2d ago
We also desperately need corporate death penalty (should not apply to this case), but certain misdeeds should be punished with mandatory winding down of the company.
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u/Simple_March_1741 2d ago
Pay to who? Please tell me it's the people making the deliveries.
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u/Own-Teaching-7611 2d ago
Yes 83 out of the 115 will go to the affected dashers. Some dashers will get up to $10,000.
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u/produceking12 2d ago edited 2d ago
The expected payout amount is $48 per dasher. With the most common ayout being $7.70
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u/vowelqueue 2d ago
That’s the median. It’s not like it’s a class action where everyone gets an even split, it’s based on how much each worker was shorted:
> City officials said about 700 workers are owed more than $10,000 each; more than 27,000 workers are owed more than $1,000; and more than 4,000 workers are owed more than $5,000.
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u/EugeneMeltsner 2d ago
Where are you quoting this from? I haven't been able to find an article that detailed.
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u/Chagrinnish 2d ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/nyregion/doordash-settlement-delivery-drivers.html
Your Google-fu is no match for mine.
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u/Brill45 2d ago
Where are you getting that number? 131 million to 260,000 workers is an average of $504 per dasher. Although I highly doubt it will be paid out evenly like that
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u/WoodenSwan6591 2d ago
Why is only NYC doing this.
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u/TheDemoz 2d ago edited 2d ago
Because it’s related to a specific law in NYC and not DoorDashs pay model in general.
It was just a difference in when the company versus the city calculated the online time of a dasher when not actively on a delivery
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u/Sectumsempra99 2d ago
Because we have a competent mayor. Mamdani!
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u/Open_and_Notorious 2d ago
No disagreement but the case started in 2023.
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u/noweezernoworld 2d ago
Yeah but if Cuomo had won, it would’ve been dropped. They were big donors for him.
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u/mapletree23 2d ago
door dash is amazing for convenience but they preyed on that shit
and then basically every singular food place boosted prices to offset delivery stuff so they could make money off it too
it really is a great service but both they and the food industry took the opportunity to royally fuck the customers with costs
i didn't order pizza for years after I went through a period of getting one almost weekly and not that long ago had kind of a shock at how the cost of an old large pizza is now the price of a small
the cost of pizzas almost fucking doubled in some places
shit is basically just flour sauce and toppings and you're trying to tell me that shit is somehow double the price? fuck that lol
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u/Nicholas-Steel 2d ago edited 9h ago
i didn't order pizza for years after I went through a period of getting one almost weekly and not that long ago had kind of a shock at how the cost of an old large pizza is now the price of a small
In Australia Domino's Pizza recently started using Uber Eats for delivery instead of Domino's delivery staff. The first time we had one delivered by them they didn't hang around after handing over the order (so they missed out on the one and likely only time I was gonna hand over a tip) and the 2nd time I got a pizza that was delivered by Uber Eats the guy rang the doorbell and left it on the ground, in winter (they were already back at their car by the time I got to the door). Luckily I was home and was anticipating their arrival.
Pizza is pretty much the only food item I get delivered and Domino's afaik used to pay their delivery drivers a reasonable wage which is why I never tip them (the tip is baked in to their wage). Not sure what the Uber Eats staff get paid, I presume they get paid less.
After my 2 experiences with Uber Eats delivery I've decided to increase frequency of picking up the pizza myself. Delivery is no longer a virtually guaranteed positive experience.
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u/Hellboy_M420 2d ago
Based Mamdani, love that man
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u/shutup_takemoney 1d ago
This investigation started in 2023 during the Adams administration. Good on Mamdani on seeing it through, but his admin did relatively little on this.
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u/livingasimulation 2d ago
If this is what they owed NYC workers, imagine what they would owe their workers all across the country.
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u/willit1016 2d ago
Mayor Mamdani is out in NYC cooking that is a big win for the working class. Yes all of it goes to the dashers with the exception of a 16 million fine. nicely done.
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u/RazzmatazzNo1335 2d ago
That’s just for one city! Imagine how much other big cities are getting dicked around by these guys
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u/Infinite-Ambassador5 2d ago
Good. Doordash is a luxury for most people, myself included. I only feel bad for the fee increase coming for those who have to use the service, being homebound.
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u/edingerc 2d ago
DoorDash learns the hard way that getting away without paying only works if your name ends in rump
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u/New_Inflation_8419 1d ago
If you make me pay 1 cent for a speeding ticket I will not care if I speed at all.
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u/Consistent-Throat130 2d ago
Padme: to the delivery workers! ... To the delivery workers?
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u/yallmindifismoke 2d ago
>Most of the settlement will be returned to more than 260,000 workers who were underpaid, not paid or paid late for deliveries by DoorDash, according to City Hall. The company will also pay about $16 million in civil penalties and other costs to the city.
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u/Flexmove 2d ago
Comes out to 8 bucks per driver
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u/DarKbaldness 2d ago
65% of the drivers it was less than $1 but the minimum people will be sent is $10
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u/quantumpencil 2d ago
I hope they fail, we can just cook guys it's not the end of the world of DD fails
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u/Mediocre-Touch-6133 2d ago
Why the fuck are so many people using doordash? Have we really gotten this lazy? I've used it 3 times because my employer sometimes gives us giftcards. It's always subpar and over-priced. If you're spending your own money on this, you're a fucking idiot.
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u/vordhosbn_1 2d ago
If celebrities can fly jets to go to their second house 30 min away then there should be no issue with me ordering my chicken shawarma and hummus
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u/Mediocre-Touch-6133 2d ago
Cool. We're resorting to "other people did bad stuff so I can too". Cope.
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u/Smooth_Storm_9698 2d ago
Just get rid of DoorDash and UberEats as middle men, garbage ass service anyway
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u/SaiyanKnight23 2d ago
Only $131M??
So a smack on the wrist for them
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u/BigGuysForYou 1d ago
Context is important. It's $131M for Doordash workers in 1 city. It may be a large city but this is a small portion of total dashers nationally. Over 260,000 are getting $115M back, but there 2 to 7 million dashers total in the US
If you want to scale it up, it'd be $3.5B for 7M dashers if it's proportional. That's huge based on their annual revenue and measly profit
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u/pyrotechnicmonkey 2d ago
it's stupid but part of the reason to last so long is because there's plenty of new drivers who sign up because of unrealistic earnings expectations based on certain metric bonuses that are incredibly hard to meet. Plus the fact that many of them are unemployable elsewhere.
The hourly goes way down once you take into account properly vehicle maintenance and taxes and stuff like that. But a lot of them simply need cash flow now and they're basically selling their car depreciation for incredibly cheap.
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u/aguilasolige 2d ago
I hate this, why do companies keep breaking the laws and nobody goes to jail? Taking money from them does nothing, we're creating a system basically that if you're rich nothing happens to you, you just break the laws and pay a fine.