Op-Ed | New Yorkers can’t afford to foot the bill for council’s new proposals

With prices continuing to rise across the board, it has become more difficult than ever for many New York City families to simply make ends meet. Despite these challenges, the New York City Council’s focus seems to be disregarding the reality that so many New Yorkers are currently facing. Now, some in the Council are at risk of ignoring what New Yorkers need and pushing through policies that will further drive up costs for everyone across the city.

A prime example of this is yet another wave of new bills targeting food delivery apps, with the Council now considering rules that would set requirements for when and how consumers tip on these platforms.

When the City implemented an extreme new pay rate for food delivery workers — one that even exceeds the pay of some emergency workers like EMTs or firefighters — that meant higher costs for consumers. But we’re now seeing that new rules simply aren’t working for anyone, including the very delivery workers it was intended to help in the first place, and the real numbers bear out that sad truth: higher costs causing thousands of lost orders for Dashers to deliver and millions of dollars in lost revenue for local businesses.

The Council is at risk of making these impacts even worse with new tipping mandates. DoorDash  moved tipping to after checkout — although it is still available for customers — as a way to help New Yorkers who are just trying to live within their means so that they would still place orders and support the local businesses that mean so much to them. This option was one that was acknowledged by the City as a way to soften the impact of such extreme new costs.

Our city’s policies should reflect how all New Yorkers — not just the loudest voices in the room — would be impacted, so we asked hundreds of New Yorkers if they would support these bills. The results revealed genuine concern about the NYC Council’s role in the city’s cost of living crisis and a clear rejection of any new requirements on tipping.

Pocketbook issues continue to be top of mind for NYC voters, and they are more concerned about the rising cost of living than any other issue. Voters were in agreement — inflation and rising costs were clearly the most important issue to them, outpacing crime, housing concerns, and transportation.

The survey also found that nearly all voters don’t want new mandates from the City Council on how and when to tip. When asked how much they agree or disagree with a series of statements pertaining to food delivery and delivery app regulation, 94% agree that customers should be able to choose how much to tip for food delivery, and 85% say the government of New York City shouldn’t be telling customers when or how much to tip.

This data makes one thing clear: New Yorkers do not want more haphazard city regulations that will increase costs for them in their day-to-day lives. The new bills proposed in the Council to regulate tipping would serve as yet another cost hike for everyday people who are already frustrated with a confusing tipping culture and cost of living crisis in this city.

These proposed rules in the Council would only make things worse. The bills would take tipping for delivery and make it more like a tax, which would only further drive down orders in the city. That means Dashers would not only lose out on a potential tip, but an opportunity to earn money altogether.

It’s clear that the NYC Council, though well intentioned, is focusing on the wrong issues. We can’t keep turning to more and more regulations as the solution to our problems, many of which stem from prior misguided regulation in the first place. It’s simply not in the best interest for New Yorkers and it’s clear that it is not what they want. Rules like these ignore the harmful impacts that they will have, while doing little to solve the issues they seek to address.

We urge the NYC Council to listen to widely held concerns of New Yorkers and to oppose extreme bills that will impact their wallets and livelihoods. There has to be a way forward that protects delivery worker earnings without compromising our beloved small business in the process, and we look forward to working together so that we can all have a fair shake to make ends meet in this city.

Kassandra Perez-Desir is the Head of Government Relations in New York City for DoorDash.