The latest investigation report released by the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) indicates that the food delivery platforms DoorDash and UberEats have caused couriers to lose over $550 million in tips in the past year and a half, averaging about $5,800 less per courier annually.
According to the city government, the issue began in December 2023 when New York City implemented new minimum wage standards for delivery workers. At that time, the platforms increased the service fees charged to consumers to offset the raised wages for couriers. However, they also moved the “tip prompt” from the checkout page to after the payment is completed, making the immediate cost visible to consumers when placing orders appear lower.
The city government believes that this design change “deliberately weakened” the tip prompt, directly affecting the income of delivery workers.
The report indicates that within a week after the interface adjustments, the average tip per order on both platforms plummeted from $3.66 to $0.93. Over the cumulative 18 months, this led to a total decrease of about $554 million in tips for delivery workers.
DoorDash strongly opposes the city government’s claims, stating that the report’s content is “entirely incorrect.” John Horton, DoorDash’s North American public policy director, told the media that the platform always gives 100% of tips to couriers. He emphasized that “post-checkout tipping” is quite common in many industries and is not improper behavior. Horton criticized that forcing consumers to see tip options during checkout is “nearly equivalent to covert taxation” and believes that the decision to tip should be left to consumers rather than government mandates.
Uber did not immediately respond to media requests for comments on the matter.
During his campaign, New York City Mayor Mamdani advocated for improving the working conditions of delivery workers. Shortly after taking office, he signed an executive order to crack down on so-called “junk fees” and deceptive subscription systems, specifically naming problems with Uber and DoorDash platforms.
The City Council recently passed legislation requiring delivery platforms to provide tip options at checkout, design more prominent tip prompts in the interface, and default to a 10% suggested tip option.
These regulations are expected to take effect on January 26th. However, DoorDash and Uber have jointly filed a lawsuit in court to try to block the new law, arguing that the city government is forcing platforms to “convey and endorse messages preferred by the government,” which they claim violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution—the right to freedom of speech for citizens.