Seattle delivery app minimum wage: How bad is it for drivers?

“Demand was dead,” the 30-year-old Illes told Fortune. 

Shortly afterward, he launched Tony Delivers, a service where Illes brings hungry Seattleites in his Beacon Hill neighborhood food deliveries on his e-bike or e-scooter. Every order in a 1.5- mile diameter costs $5, no matter what customers order.

“I feel more capable than just sitting around waiting for some app to deliver you the goods….I can go get it myself,” he said.

Now Illes’ full-time job, Tony Delivers added some consistency to his volatile gig work. He did not share sales figures with Fortune, but he said the business is successful and getting “better every single day.” Why did this long-time gig worker have to go into business for himself, though?

City Hall plays a part in this story—and a minimum wage ordinance that was designed to help gig workers.

The long waits between orders only began after Jan. 13, 2024 when Seattle enacted an ordinance that boosted the minimum wage for delivery-app drivers. While the ordinance was meant to protect gig workers who rely on the income they earn from making deliveries plus tips, app-based companies didn’t just absorb those costs. Instead, they rolled them into the fees customers pay for service, and if you talk to them and drivers like Illes, there was a catastrophic drop-off in business. 

Steven Marchese, director of the Seattle Office of Labor Standards, said the law was “an important step forward,” but delivery app executives felt differently. To offset increased operating costs in the city, delivery apps including UberEats and DoorDash implemented additional fees to cover deliveries and platform costs. As a…