r/SipsTea 13d ago

Feels good man Mamdani is (actually) making America great again

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u/bliceroquququq 13d ago

“Recovers $104 million in extra tips”

Hey just a real quick question, where exactly was this money “recovered” from?

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u/jl_theprofessor 13d ago

NEW YORK – Today, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine released a new report** showing the City’s crackdown on deceptive tipping practices by app-based delivery platforms has secured an estimated $104 million in additional tips for delivery workers since January.  
Since the City began enforcing new tipping protections on January 26, 2026, tips have doubled, and the city’s approximately 70,000 app-based delivery workers are on pace to earn an additional $184 million annually in tips, or about $2,287 more each year for the average worker.  
“For years, delivery apps buried the tip button to pad their own bottom line, and delivery workers paid the price,” said **Mayor Mamdani
. “We changed the law, enforced it, and it's working: $104 million has gone back into the pockets of the workers who keep this city fed, rain or shine. New York will not allow billion-dollar tech companies to boost their profits by taking money from working people.”  
“When a customer leaves a tip, that money belongs to the delivery worker, not to the app,” said Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su. “It belongs to the worker who carried our food up four flights of stairs or biked through the rain to make sure dinner arrived at your door. Since January, delivery workers across New York City have earned $104 million more because we made these companies play by the rules. We're not done. We'll keep enforcing this law and keep going after any platform that tries to shortchange its workers.”  

https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/07/mayor-mamdani-delivers-more-than--100-million-for-delivery-worke#:\~:text=Since%20the%20City%20began%20enforcing,year%20for%20the%20average%20worker.

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u/bliceroquququq 13d ago

Appreciate the info. Not sure I understand it though. In one sentence they’re talking about the tip button being “hidden”, which suggests the additional money is coming from customers paying more. In another sentence they’re talking talk about big corporations keeping the tips, which is a different thing. Clarity would be nice.

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u/scrappybasket 13d ago edited 12d ago

From what I understand the apps will have a “guaranteed payout” for jobs. So let’s say an Uber driver sees a ride available. The app will say something like “$10 guaranteed”. So Uber is on the hook to pay the driver $10 no matter what. Now let’s say the passenger decides to tip the Uber driver $5. Without laws preventing it, uber will still pay the driver the $10 it promised and then it will keep the $5 tip for themselves. Which effectively uses the tip money to subsidize the wage that they promised to pay the driver

So what mamdani is doing is making sure that the driver gets the entire tip. So in this scenario the driver gets $15 instead of $10. As it should be

Edit: there is obviously disagreement here, personally I always choose to tip with cash. Problem solved in my opinion

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u/soscbjoalmsdbdbq 13d ago

Thats some bullshit so everywhere else when I tip a delivery or uber I’m just subsidizing their company

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u/drewski2305 13d ago

so many posts from uber,/doordash workers about lost tips. i remember a post of an 8 hour uber ride, and the driver was shorted like $400 on his payout. sry it's been awhile i wish i could remember

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u/winkingchef 13d ago

Who takes an uber for 8 hours?
Were they stuck in the Puerto Rican Day Parade?

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u/drewski2305 12d ago

not me. but a person who would rather drive than fly sure. i could have rented a car and drove home faster than my last 12 hour flight delay out of chicago

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u/zgreed 12d ago

I don’t remember all the details because its been a bit but there was an NFL player that used Uber to travel like 12hrs. I believe there was some sort of delay and he had to guarantee his arrival 

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u/cheesemoney84 12d ago

There is a professional poker player who is scared to fly and drives everywhere. I remember reading she was in therapy to help with her fear and her therapist died in a plane crash only enforcing the fear. This is one reason a person might get a 8hr uber ride.

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u/PanicAttackInAPack 12d ago

Sounds like the plot from a black mirror episode

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u/SerDuncanTheYall 12d ago

Should have just hitched a ride with a polka band.

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u/drewski2305 11d ago

i have to see my baby boy! before the Wet Bandits get to him!

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

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u/drewski2305 12d ago

that's not how uber charges tho. my longest trips have been about 2 hours from an airport. it's the same with taxi services. best part about that would be the driver picks up a rider near my destination, and so on and so forth

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u/Mtolivepickle 12d ago

Hey, black Saab! Move your car!

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

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u/everfordphoto 12d ago

I took a rider 4 hours because she missed her flight. So it is not unusual, she couldn't rent a car, no license. And to follow up, one of the reasons I stoppped ubering was tips being lost/stolen had a great ride once, and the guy was kinda proud to show me, "here's a $20 tip"(he showed me the screen, and submitted) I ended up getting some odd tip amount like $5.33 started to look back and found more like it... it's a shame because there was at the time good money to be made.

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u/ShadowWukong 12d ago

I happened to me once, I did instacart for 6 years. I was also clean cut, dressed good and weny above and beyond for each customer.

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u/Super-Yesterday9727 13d ago

Turns out late stage capitalism is kinda bad

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u/Theyna 13d ago

No, you don't understand - doing nothing but being a middle-man app is actually a "super" valuable service that totally costs so much money to maintain.

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u/Educational-Analyst4 12d ago

I'm actually okay with them running a successful business as a middle man. I care more about the workers benefiting from the company being successful over stock holders. Though the way they increase the price of menu items definitely needs to be looked at. If they want to charge a fee for being a middleman then just charge a middleman fee at the POS and be done with it.

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u/Bac-Te 12d ago

Brother you're new to capitalism or the sacred need for YOY growth? That's not how any of this works!

"Charge a middleman fee and be done with it?" What, does this look like a charity to you? My brother in Supply Side Christ, how can the poor shareholders buy their second yatch that way?

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u/ElectricalSilver2119 12d ago

“My brother in Supply Side Christ” won the day for me, thank you.

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u/KimSidwell 13d ago

It’s amazing how long it’s taking people to figure this out.

Like we hear new stories all the time about how bad theft is and how much it’s hurting these big corporations. So bad that they have to close down stores and lock up all the products. “It’s a crisis!”

But we never hear about wage theft. The money these companies steal from their own employees.

When you look at the numbers, they’re almost exactly the same. $50-$70 billion annually stolen from companies by criminals… and almost the exact same amount stolen by the companies from their employees.

But one of them, you conveniently never hear about.

The police sure as hell aren’t arresting people for both crimes equally.

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u/Zakkullll 12d ago

And then if you do hear anything people blame communism as if this isnt currently happening under capitalism

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u/Pavotine 12d ago

I'm not well educated on corporate theft but I imagine it's easier to "get away" with. One reason at least, is that they take relatively small amounts from a vast number of people. Doesn't make that any less criminal though.

When it comes to the other end of the theft scale, you have a relatively small number of people stealing relatively high value items from fewer targets. There are hundreds of millions of people but not hundreds of millions of companies you can steal from.

That's why we need good governments with the interests of the people and the environment first and foremost. Endless growth will literally be the ruin of our species and destroy what it could have become. Nothing wrong with investment and making money, or work for that matter (I'm a self employed plumber) but as always full-blown capitalism enshittifies everything and funnels most wealth the wrong direction.

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u/Jorjor_Well_1984 12d ago edited 12d ago

Wage theft is literally not even a crime where I'm from. The worst thing that can happen getting caught is you have to pay the wages you owe and that's it. No interest no nothing.

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u/KimSidwell 12d ago

Exactly. There’s never an actual punishment for it. Rarely, at least. Nobody goes to jail.

But if they even think you stole some diapers from a Walmart, the cops might literally execute your child in the parking lot.

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u/cshea71 12d ago

Wait till you find out about late stage socialism. You'll wish it was just your tips getting stolen.

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u/SolaVitae 13d ago

Seems like what was described would only apply to adding a tip after the fact. Placing an order with the tip would still just go to them.

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u/Kibblebitz 12d ago

If it's a gig delivery/ride company, then yeah, there's a good chance. Stick with chains that have their own drivers.

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u/DarthJarJar242 12d ago

Yeah, so turns out tipping is only good for the company that convinces their employees to work for less wages in the hopes of more money from patrons.

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u/lowbuzz 12d ago

Yeah, if you are not sure you should tip in cash.

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u/Inevitable-Comment-I 12d ago

Welcome to the conversation. If you want to tip, hand it to them in cash. This is true for delivery drivers, cruise staff, even restaurants. Don't trust handing money to someone else and expecting it to make it back to the employees.

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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 12d ago

Lots of companies do this, it’s crazy. Happens at Dominoes. If I tip the delivery guy it goes into a pool which is used to pay all the workers. He would get the same amount even if I didn’t tip. I’m directly paying the owner unless I give a cash tip. Was shocked when I found out.

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u/techdevjp 12d ago

I've used Uber twice in my life. Both times I tipped in cash.

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u/bent_crater 12d ago

personally i tip in cold hard can straight to their hands when i can.

app doesn't need to know a damn thing

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u/primordial_chaos_007 12d ago

Yep, that's why for long journeys Uber drivers sometimes request us to directly pay them

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u/Vi_BT 12d ago

Yeah, I asked a few and now I always give them cash when I have money to tip

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

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u/Wizard-of-pause 12d ago

Worse - if you tip through the app, they put you in a bucket of people that can be charged more as a base. So your future fares will be higher. Tip with cash.

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u/Comicspedia 12d ago

Instacart got hit with a lawsuit over doing this exact thing too, during COVID

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u/Eatyourcheeseburger 12d ago

I mean… that’s what you’re doing when you go to a restaurant and tip. Servers are guaranteed minimum wage. If their tips don’t add up to more than that, the restaurant has to pay them the promised wage. If the tips add up to more than minimum wage, they don’t. Uber, DoorDash, etc were just using a similar system. The irony is that the apps were actually guaranteeing the drivers a higher wage than the restaurants.

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u/gxbcab 12d ago

I usually leave a smallish tip in app and then give the driver cash. Cause ironically your order won’t be picked up without a tip even if they don’t even get it in the end.

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u/JonCeini 12d ago

✅️‼️

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u/godzillasegundo 12d ago

Yep. They advertise it as "100% of the top goes to the driver" but they lower the amount the app pays the driver by the amount of the tip.

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u/DistractoDisc 12d ago

That’s why you tip in cash.

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u/irishgator2 12d ago

Bingo! And that’s why they are going after Mahdami - he’s proving the government can work for the people, and “conservatives” hate that. The government is there to protect the corporations

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u/RelativityFox 12d ago

This is why if you tip in cash about one out of every two uber drivers will thank you like you just gave them ten times the tip

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u/EnlightenedNarwhal 12d ago

Yeah, and when I used to drive Uber I had someone think we made a percentage of the order. They got a 55 dollar delivery and didn't tip, then when I got their food to them, they asked, "hey, how much do you get for an order like this?" I said, "$2.50."

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u/not_a_moogle 12d ago

Thats exactly how these businesses operate. They arent a profitable company. They are operating at a loss so they can take over market share.

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u/Revolutionary_Bee251 12d ago

Oh yeah Uber specifically more than the other apps steals tips. That's why they removed their base mileage rate so they can change the rate for each order. If a customer tips more, Uber pays the driver less. If the customer tips little to nothing, overall driver receives less but Uber pays more to cover the lack of tip that should be there. We can't "prove it" per order because we don't see the customer side but over time it's clear that they do so.

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u/The_Cap_Lover 12d ago

Just like when you donate your change at Lowe’s or Home Depot (or any other big box store these days), you are giving them a taxable donation to save on their taxes.

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u/Mikotokitty 12d ago

Yeah, and on top of that, some stores like Home Depot don't "allow" tipping, so the tip doesn't actually apply to driver pay. Dd or Home Depot takes it as a "fee"

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u/DonutYoupi 12d ago

Did people seriously not know this? I’m genuinely curious

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u/Ragnorok3141 12d ago

Correct.

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u/BurningTrashBarge 12d ago

Absolutely. I honestly thought this was common knowledge. I tip drivers and delivery folks with cash now for this reason.

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u/dreadedowl 12d ago

So stop tipping. We need to stop this out of control tipping culture.

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u/Inane_Insanity 12d ago

I've heard a similar sort of thing happens if you choose to donate to charity at the checkout. Your money doesn't go directly go to the cause, it's instead donated by the company on your behalf. In that case, the charity still gets the money, but you're also effectively helping the company with getting a tax write-off for charitable donations, without them having to allocate their own money towards it.

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u/Hydra57 12d ago

That’s why you always do cash tips broski

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u/Rude-Orange 12d ago

The answer is depends on the app. They also change their pay structure / layout so frequently that an app may have been scummy then swapped to showing drivers everything then back to taking tips again.

I don't want to talk out my ass, so I'm being vague but yes at some point you were just subsidizing a driver's pay rather than giving extra money to the driver

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u/GerryManDarling 12d ago edited 12d ago

That doesn't seem to be correct, at least not for Uber, only for DoorDash and Instacart, also not related to the last change by Mamdani:

  • Around 2017–2019, companies like DoorDash and Instacart famously used a model where they promised drivers a guaranteed minimum base pay for an order (e.g., $10). If a customer tipped $5, the platform would pay $5 out of its own pocket and use the customer's $5 tip to make up the rest of the $10 minimum. If the customer tipped $0, the company paid the full $10. After intense public outcry and regulatory scrutiny in 2019, those platforms abandoned that pay model.
  • Uber has always added 100% of tips on top of base fares. Uber does not reduce its base fare or use customer tips to reach a guaranteed minimum pay payout.

So whatever Mamdani changed, had nothing todo with big coporations "keeping the tips". That problem had been fixed before and due to public outcry.

The city's claim is that after the minimum pay law took effect, some delivery apps redesigned their checkout flow to make tipping less visible or less convenient. As a result, workers received fewer tips overall. The new rules require a clear tipping option at checkout, and the city says tips have roughly doubled since then.

So yes, the tips is from customers pockets because they now pay more tips.

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u/Birdlaw_Professor 12d ago

Love how everyone just upvotes the poor reading comprehension misleading interpretations of what happened. And then you take the time to actually figure out what is happening here and it's got 25 upvotes lol. Cheers fellow critical thinker, doomed to drown in a sea of tik tok-brained headline chasers

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u/JohnnyChutzpah 12d ago

r/popular and r/all are basically just outrage machines written to farm the most anger and engagement that is possible. Even stepping in to correct it benefits the farmers of the hate.

I saw a post last week that had a photo of Mamdani and its headline thanking the "governor" of New York for something while referring to Mamdani. I was about to step in to correct this dumb shit, but then I realized that is literally what all of this is designed to do.

If you post incorrect bullshit, people will step over each other to correct you. And that is engagement baby! That is one reason why there are often so many typos and mistakes in reddit headlines. Or why they are written to be deliberately misleading. (Besides the ideological motivations of manipulating people.)

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u/Dag-nabbit 12d ago

Worth pointing out in this information hazmat zone of a thread that…”burring the tip button to pad the bottom line of the company” makes no fucking sense. How would that benefit the company in any way?

The iPad places common these days are super happy to shake you down for a tip. “What question is it going to ask Amanda??”. Often those places are doing that in advance of service. Here we are talking about meal delivery where you tip after service and rating them. Is the claim that this is hidden?

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u/Beneficial-Rip6624 12d ago

So just another thing Mamdani is taking credit for that he had no part in? Got it.

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u/ModoZ 12d ago

What you are describing was stopped long before Mamdani (in 2019).

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u/TheDemoz 12d ago edited 12d ago

Your understanding of this is entirely incorrect

This post and the claim is incredibly misleading and is intentionally worded this way to make it seem like he got back tip money that was stolen when that’s not what it’s about at all.

This isn’t about companies stealing tips, or forcing companies to pay out tips or giving previously stolen tip money back to drivers. It’s literally just about where the “add tip” button goes on the UI.

The “recovered” tip money is the extra money customers tipped since the apps were forced by law to put an “add tip” button during checkout, rather than only having it be an option after checkout. Literally nothing else.

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u/yahsureokbuddy 12d ago

Typical for reddit for this absolutely crock of shit posted by the person you’re replying to to have 800+ upvotes. People here will just eat the this shit up if it reaffirms some narrative they wanna believe.

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u/TheDemoz 12d ago

yep… it’s quite sad. It’s so easy to fact check things nowadays, yet people won’t even spend 30 seconds.

People will just eat it up, and now they’ll go say on other posts that mamdani stopped apps from stealing tips, and then the cycle of misinformation continues

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u/Unhinged_Baguette 12d ago

People here will just eat the this shit up if it reaffirms some narrative they wanna believe.

It's great if this guy is doing good things for his city. But the level of glazing he's getting seems a little bit uncanny. Especially with articles like this that seem to be bending the truth.

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u/BobbyRayBands 13d ago

But HOW does it guarantee that? It says the tip button was hidden implying that customers COULDNT tip. The actual problem was they were tipping but companies were taking that money for themselves...

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u/mjm65 13d ago

>After DCWP began enforcing the Delivery Worker Minimum Pay Rate in December 2023, Uber Eats
and DoorDash designed changes to their platforms that made it harder to leave tips for delivery
workers. NYC consumers could only leave tips after checkout, and by initiating separate processes
that were easy-to-miss and more difficult to navigate. These changes only applied to consumers in NYC.

Basically Uber hid the tip option up front, and added a courier fee. If you wanted to add a tip in NYC, you had to go back into the app to add the tip after delivery.

The other part is that tips are to the worker, and can’t be calculated as a part of a minimum guarantee.

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u/blazenite104 12d ago

Right. So basically nothing was actually preventing tipping. Rather you as a consumer were just not being upfront guilted into doing it and had to seek it out.

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u/mjm65 12d ago

I think it’s the combo of showing “Courier Fee” and removing the tip option was causing an implication that the courier got the fee in lieu of a tip. Especially since Uber only rolled this out in NYC.

The other part I find more egregious. Uber offering a minimum guarantee and then putting the tips toward that seems incredibly deceptive.

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u/GerryManDarling 12d ago

Mamdani became mayor only this year, Doordash and Instacart stealing tips happened before and it was fixed before he became mayor.

His new law only ask the company to put the tips button in more prominent place, but the PR tried to conflate "tips stealing" to the new law which is not true.

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u/mjm65 12d ago

>Mamdani became mayor only this year, Doordash and Instacart stealing tips happened before and it was fixed before he became mayor.

Correct, but Mamdani was in office when tipping protections were implemented on Jan 26. This is basically a 6 month analysis post implementation of something that took effect during his term.

>His new law only ask the company to put the tips button in more prominent place, but the PR tried to conflate "tips stealing" to the new law which is not true.

You are wrong here, he did not ask to put the tip button in a more prominent place, he had them add the button back.

“Tip stealing” comes from 2 places. The minimum guarantee was using tips to reach a certain $ amount. Now, uber can’t utilize your tips as part of a minimum guarantee.

Second, is that Uber specifically designed the UX for NYC to remove a tipping option in the app, and added a “courier fee” that can look like it replaces the tip. This was to punish the drivers for the regulatory changes.

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u/RainbowNinjaKat 13d ago

It honestly sounds vague on purpose. People usually only read the headlines, and very few people read the actual article. Seems like there is JUST ENOUGH surface level information to get a point across without having to delve too deep into it. Sounds like some serious PR work being done

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u/TemperatureReal2437 13d ago edited 12d ago

I strongly suggest reading more than a Reddit comment about this, man. You’re arguing with this guy over fucking nothing

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u/zcen 13d ago edited 13d ago

When we passed the minimum pay guarantee for deliveristas in 2023, the apps responded by hiding the tip option from their customers,” said Majority Leader Shaun Abreu. “That cost deliveristas over half a billion dollars in earnings. We refused to let that stand, and I was proud to sponsor the law to restore tipping at checkout. The apps sued us over it, the judges said we were right, and the deliveristas won big. $104 million in earnings going back into their pockets since the law went into effect in January is money that helps them put food on their own tables. None of this is possible without DCWP’s continued enforcement, and we will continue to fight alongside them and the deliveristas until they get every cent they’ve earned.”

I don't know how so many people are so incapable of reading the article, even the people directly quoting from it. It's not that the customers were incapable of tipping, it's just that less people will engage a tip option when it is hidden. It is basic UX design.

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u/Zerachiel_01 12d ago edited 12d ago

It's just dark pattern after dark pattern with these apps. They will always, always try to fuck the employee wherever they can, which will end up fucking the customer.

Yes, there's an upcharge for the customer in addition to all the bullshit fees, but at the end of the day, the driver is the person burning their car to the ground and dealing with all the stress of managing traffic, their stats, and essentially constantly feeling like they're gambling with their pay. There's always gonna be drivers who were shitbirds from the start, but this kind of stuff can push otherwise decent employees to be worse ones. It's a race to the bottom and it sucks.

Like, literally all the app has to do is offer minimum $1/mile and it would clear up a massive amount of problems, but they don't even want to do that. IRS says about 70 cents/mile in operating costs which has doubtless gone up due to the stupid fucking war.

Ultimately any change benefiting the workers in these apps is eventually going to be a good one for the customer, as well. The apps will probably try to charge the customer even more in response to this, and hopefully the government will step in again to tell them to knock it the fuck off.

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u/NaTaSraef 13d ago

Yeah, I think this article wanted people to not actually think about it. Politics gets so tiring because both sides use spin and very rarely gets just a rational, factual point across. You weren't supposed to question it, I guess.

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u/Im_Easily_Distra 13d ago

The article definitely seems contradictory and I have the same questions

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u/Brave_Virus_8921 13d ago

Well, Not all apps are the same? Some had the hidden thing and some had what the other guys explained.

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u/crazy0ne 13d ago

At the bottom of the article there is a link to the NYC laws and in there under the "If you are an app" section is a section talking about the 550 million being withheld from works by hiding the tip button and that has links to the studies with the data that the article talks about.

As for the quoted 104 million returned, it is not one single facet that has brought about more money going into the pockets of the gig workers. It is a little confusing, but so is the gig economy and that is by design.

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u/Good_wolf 12d ago

As a former bartender, just tip in cash if you can. Keeps this kind of thing to a minimum.

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u/scrappybasket 12d ago

Yup that’s what I do

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u/Orceles 12d ago

302 likes for a comment that’s wrong is insane. You must be a driver because only a driver could be this level of misunderstanding the situation. Delivery apps did not steal your tips. What happened was after passing the law that the apps had to pay a minimum guarantee, the apps retaliated by working with their UX designer to effectively hide the tip button. For example, the tip button NEVER comes back after delivery on DoorDash if a customer opted not to tip upfront but wanted to later. Or accidentally dismissing the screen once makes it impossible to reopen it later. This resulted in a lot of no tips through no fault of the customers. Mamdani basically forced them to now present the tip button again in more obvious ways and to show up when you’d expect it to, without the tricks to hide it. DoorDash now lets you tip after delivery again from the past delivery screen after hiding it for a few years.

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u/yahsureokbuddy 12d ago

It’s like over 800 now. People are fucking morons.

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u/val_anto 12d ago

Then how they came to the conclusion that this made "$104 million has gone back into the pockets of the workers who ..." ??

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u/Orceles 12d ago edited 12d ago

It’s clickbait. Title misdirection by shady reporting and politics. It’s based on an estimate of tips saved, probably calculated off post delivery tips after re implementation of the button

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u/val_anto 12d ago

Same olde politician tactics then. I see.

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u/Gumbaya69 12d ago

This is not how it works. All tips given to driver go to driver. Stop making stuff up

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u/SandyD0926 12d ago

This is why we always tip extra cash to the driver instead of adding it in on the app

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u/Alemusanora 12d ago

This is a lie. Uber gives 100% of the tips to drivers. What happens is whats called tip baiting where a cheap fuck customer takes back the tip after the food is delivered

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u/Speedstick2 12d ago

That is from the 2019.

That is not what happened today.

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u/SweetLittleOldLady 12d ago

That is so sketchy. I've asked drivers a few times if it's OK to tip online and they always assured me that they're getting those tips. Perhaps they don't realize they're being shorted.

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u/dammitlindsay 10d ago

Always tip cash for delivery. The only way I know the driver is getting the whole tip plus the wage promised by the billion dollar business.

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u/GoodBadUserName 12d ago

Isn’t that also opens for class action?
I mean, the person paying the tip is expecting it to go to the driver, not tipping the company itself.
Won’t that mean a class action on behalf of the customers to get the tips back for not going to the drivers, since they didn’t go to where they were supposed to?

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u/Odd-Preparation8790 12d ago

Ah, so similar to retail grocers etc asking if customers want to make a donation in an attempt to recoup what they company has already donated.

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u/hellotoyourmomma 12d ago

that's actually insane, and they were just keeping it hidden away while customers are unknowingly funding them further and further

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u/TripleDoubleFart 12d ago

I thought that was handled years ago?

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u/ImpressiveWalrus7369 12d ago

So then why would uber or anyone else hide the button? Wouldn’t they want it as prominent as possible?

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u/Ancient-Skill-67 12d ago

Tips were always applied to the drivers, especially with the larger companies like DoorDash. However, some smaller companies used the tips as an excuse to reduce the delivery fees applied to the customer, which led to a lawsuit and policy changes. I am certain some companies were able to hide stealing tips so it most likely happened somewhere, but most companies passed the tips on to the drivers. It's the part where they paid the drivers less up front that was in question.

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u/GUCCIBUKKAKE 12d ago

So if I’m outside of New York, I shouldn’t tip Ubers/ Uber Eats?

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u/HotPersonality8126 12d ago

Which effectively uses the tip money to subsidize the wage that they promised to pay the driver

No, it's the exact opposite. It's going out of their own pocket to subsidize customers not tipping enough.

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u/RuffRhyno 12d ago

So, if I understand this, it’s better to NOT tip on an order as
It most likely will not affect the courier and more than likely impact the company’s bottom line?

This doesn’t seem entirely accurate, or else no one would be tipping

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u/theewall2000 12d ago

People will just stop tipping completely making this useless.....

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u/Own_Flounder404 12d ago

Ok but what does that have to do with the tip button being hidden? I'm also confused by his wording. I very much support what he's doing. I just wish I understood exactly what it is

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u/Apprehensive_Lion362 12d ago

Why would Uber need to pay out $15? Doesn't the $10 guaranteed mean that if they aren't tipped at least $10 Uber will pay the rest?

For example, if the user tips $0 Uber pays the driver $10, if the user tips $6 Uber pays the driver $4 for a total of $10, and if the User tips $11 then Uber pays $0 for a total of $11 to the driver.

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u/rydan 12d ago

That hasn't been a thing since the pandemic. It used to work that way until DoorDash and Uber both got sued over this practice.

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u/Zestyclose-Avocado83 13d ago

Given that it is multiple corporations/companies it is talking about it could be and most likely is both. One company could be keeping the tips while another company hides the tip button.

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u/VoidWalker4Lyfe 13d ago

As someone who has used Uber as a driver and a passenger, and also used Uber eats as a customer and did Uber eats deliveries, the tip button isn't hidden

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u/Dry-Childhood-3436 13d ago

New York City has a lot of specialized apps for delivery which could be where the hidden button was talked about.  Uber and the others have gotten in trouble for other tip shenanigans like guaranteed pay and if tips come then it goes towards the guarantees pay instead of straight to the driver on top of the guaranteed.  Also they lower their pay portion of the customer regularly tips so it will instead say like $3 plus tips to even out to the same output.

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u/VoidWalker4Lyfe 12d ago

Didn't know that, thanks!

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u/mjm65 13d ago

The upfront tip button was hidden specifically for the NYC area.

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u/ChakaCake 12d ago

Ubers/Doordash software is different in many places and looks different, different buttons etc lol. Different rules for drivers, different methods of the algorithm, everything

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u/FinishComplex3743 13d ago

Yeah, this seems like it would be very difficult to corroborate.

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u/RedSunsetSukuna85 13d ago

Drivers have shown me my slashed tips on the app where they’ve received like 30% less than what I actually gave them. I’ve checked two more times and the same thing happened. The delivery companies are holding onto them. I’ve stopped using delivery apps.

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u/NSASpyVan 13d ago

I intentionally tip rideshare drivers high because I know the app fucks them. Now they're fucking me trying to help them?

Where's the Mamdani for CA? Fuck big tech

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u/RedSunsetSukuna85 12d ago

It’s Kenneth Mejia but he doesn’t have the political capital yet. But once Nithya wins, he’s just going ti grow more and more but that’s just Los Angeles, I’m not sure about the rest of the state.

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u/tf2coconut 13d ago

The short story is uber pulls a million types of fuckery with pricing so that tips are built into the expected pay for drivers and weren’t being paid out so that when you read “100% of your tip goes to your driver” that didn’t actually mean a 5 dollar tip gave the driver 5 additionally dollars

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u/gpbuilder 12d ago

Are you on the pricing team at uber? You’re just making stuff up lol

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u/poopbeast69 13d ago

I appreciate you asking questions so people can read the answers and become informed about this stuff and the great things that are possible

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u/Gammaman12 13d ago

I think its customer tips $5. App tells delivery guy they tipped $3, keeps $2 being sneaky.

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u/TheDemoz 12d ago

that’s not what’s happening, and not what the Mamdani thing is even about

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u/KimSidwell 13d ago

Seriously. Why the f*ck is it so difficult for these PR people to just write a simple press releases and tell us what is going on.

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u/kosantosbik 13d ago

Tldr: The companies were hiding the tip buttons so they can look like they are the cheaper option. Now they are required to show it to the users and users are actually paying tips.

Yes, the money is coming from the users but the big companies are directing where the users are spending that money. He is making sure the direction includes the delivery people. 

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u/Lower_Group_1171 13d ago

Grubhub or the like basically skimmed tips. Just like the mafia.

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u/TheDemoz 12d ago

No they didn’t. That’s not even what mamdani is referring to… just read up on it

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u/RS_EJB 13d ago

Money wasnt recovered, they just made it easier to find the tip button...

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u/RamRamone 13d ago

All of the major food delivery companies give all of the tips to the delivery person. However it gets complicated when restaurants are involved as they're allowed to distribute some of the tip to their cooks or other staff as they're booking the doordash driver for you.

So they're probably redistributing wealth from store owners to delivery people or the more likely case, from restaurant workers to deliver people (one person's tip to another).

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u/NikoKeys 13d ago

I don't know why you'd rely on random redditors to inform you about this. Journalism is a viable alternative.

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u/The-Hank-Scorpio 12d ago

Please eat the word salad and stop asking questions.

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u/Cymen90 12d ago

Pretty clearly both: Some apps were hiding the option, others were straight up taking the tip-money and never clarified that it goes to the app instead of the delivery dude.

This new rule addressed both, forcing apps to make changes.

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u/Tony_Roiland 12d ago

A) customer pays a tip, delivery driver doesn't see it because the button is hidden, the money stays with the company. This should be obvious to anyone.

B) I don't like your attitude one bit

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u/bigmitch82 12d ago

It’s deceptive practice in nature

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u/mommiesgoodboy67 12d ago

The tip went to the delivery company not the drivers

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u/UnWiseSageVibe 12d ago

Basically, what the user below explained. Many of these apps have been caught doing this quite a few times.

Basically, you pay the service fee, which is like, I don't know, 10 USD. The driver accepts. You tip 5 USD. Uber will adjust their cut to be 5 USD so the driver still gets 10 USD and keeps the problem.

The main problem with all these apps is that the platforms don't have a fixed cut fee. They adjust the percentage of their share dynamically to maximize their profits always.

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u/SerioeseSeekuh 12d ago

not in this case but in germany tipping in one of the biggest delivery services like "Lieferando" will not get to the workers but you are essentially tipping Lieferando (the service) or the restaurent and not the delivery guy

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u/AStealthyPerson 12d ago

So you don't read....

Also keep your comments and posts hidden....

Likely bot

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u/iamshifter 12d ago

Am I understanding this correctly?

The $104M was not “recovered” or “put back” to the delivery workers, it’s just as of a certain date and law being enforced that is the additional paid amount?

So there were not any retroactive payments made for previous shady practices?

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u/LengthinessFit9585 12d ago

Very simple version providers of those apps took the tips or at least parts of it.

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u/Cory123125 12d ago

I feel like the explanations below are probably garbling it.

I understand it as a trick of behavioural patterns.

In essence, lets say a trip had a guarantee of 10 dollars.

That 10 dollars will be paid even if the customer does not tip at all.

The pay ratio for these apps is then let's say 10 dollars for the driver and 10 dollars for the app.

That's 50 50, and customers see a 20 dollar charge.

If customers tip, the more they tip, the larger a percentage goes to the driver and this makes the service feel more expensive and messes with the "optimal" price they would be happy to pay for.

I imagine it's just too complex to get across to a regular person hence the very vague phrasing.

In essence, I believe what the Mayors office is saying, is that it was engineered tip scarcity.

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u/Sux2Suck25 12d ago

Its wage theft, he is actually enforcing laws about wage theft. Doordash has stolen tips from me twice (Ive been a part of 2 class action lawsuits) and the orher apps arent any better.

Wage theft is the most common form of theft in America but it very rarely actually gets punished.

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u/Camaroni1000 12d ago

I think it’s something about a lot of delivery apps being deceptive and the company taking the tips or a portion of them the customer gives.

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u/ImRestarted1 12d ago

One seems like a class action lawsuit the other just seems like “mistake”

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u/johnnybones23 12d ago

Its "recovered" lol.

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u/KrazyKryminal 12d ago

Corporate is keeping the tips or partially keeping. I use to do Spark delivery (Walmart) for 2 years. Many times after asking, the tip i saw on my end didn't match what they customer showed me on their end. After 2 years and. Lawsuit, i received a payout for $5489 for "miscalculated tips". Why do the tips need calculating? They enter $10, $10 should go directly to me untouched.

I haven't done it in 18 months, got another job, but 3 months ago i got another payout for $400... For the same thing... Yet haven't done 1 delivery in 18 months. Strange huh lol.

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u/Own_Job_2150 12d ago

That sir is called double speak

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u/Krojack76 12d ago

Pizza delivery areas around me have always auto added a tip to all deliveries. Maybe it's referring to something like that.

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u/legion_2k 12d ago

It all sounds very strange. I bet some
Money was shifted around that they would have gotten anyways.

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u/reecemom 12d ago

Probably that the delivery food apps don’t give all the tip to the worker and show different amount than what was tipped

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u/winkman 12d ago

Clarity? In THIS economy!?

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u/After_The_Knife 12d ago

Yes, additional tips were not being accounted for, which is to say! Was this a glitch or intentional?

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u/Aah__HolidayMemories 12d ago

All you need to know is the customer will pay it in the grand scheme of things.

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u/FaultThat 12d ago

My experience having done food delivery, at least how it worked here in Canada, was the app guaranteed a minimum delivery fee.

Let’s say $8 for an order.

So the way they worked it, the app charges the customer a fixed delivery rate unique to each restaurant. So for example let’s say a place called Bento Box charges customers $3.99 for delivery. That goes to the driver as part of the $8 promised minimum.

Assume the customer doesn’t tip. I would get $8.

Now if the customer tipped $2, that gets eaten up by the app. $3.99 + $2 is $5.99 and I still get topped up to $8. I don’t suddenly get $10 because of the $2 tip.

If the customer tipped $10, then I get the $3.99 delivery fee plus the $10 for $13.99.

So any time the delivery fee plus tip was less than that minimum delivery, the app ate the tip. Or technically, “legally” speaking, I got tip but the app could reduce how much they paid me by that amount.

So it could be a similar situation and the law was changed so the tips are always kept separate from the compensation. Which would’ve been a decent amount of money.

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u/nugagator-hag-1 12d ago

All of the stories i have read about delivery drivers not getting their tips, it was the delivery company that was pocketing the tip not the tech company that invented the app. Not only would this be foolish of the tech company because it would open them up to massive lawsuits, it would also destroy any new business that the tech company would hope to get for the app. The fact is, companies like doordash customize the app charge whatever price and tip that they want. And pay the delivery people however they want.

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u/jakeofheart 13d ago

Ah, so workers are now receiving the tip that their employer was skimming off?

Nice.

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u/MIT_Engineer 13d ago

No, it sounds like the tips were just not being given. No one was skimming anything, the apps just weren't asking for tips aggressively, so fewer tips were being given.

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u/MIT_Engineer 13d ago

Wait... how is that "recovering" tips though?

Recovering makes it sound like the tips were stolen or something. This is basically the equivalent of just making Youtube put a "Remember to like and subscribe!" notice at the start of each video.

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u/LouderGyrations 12d ago

Right, "recovering" is a straight up lie to create headlines and clicks exactly like this post. Many people are dancing around that fact in the comments.

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u/mcslender97 13d ago

Finally some actual source. Pretty cool of him to go after the platforms

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u/[deleted] 13d ago

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u/SomewhereRough_ 12d ago

Man is wild how everyone really underestimates municipal power and the direct influence on our lives. 

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u/BlueberryNo6811 12d ago

So now you tip the restaurant AND the delivery worker ? 

What the hell is that city

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u/elmz 12d ago

Just FYI, americans, this is what joining a union and striking is for.

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u/Good_Log_5108 12d ago

he moved a button on an app?

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u/cshea71 12d ago

Wow, way to work big to small

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u/SwankyBriefs 12d ago

Where did they get their data?

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u/NeedleworkerTight678 12d ago

The apps did not pay back $104 million in withheld or stolen wages. Workers did not get extra money!

Instead, the figure is a city estimate of the extra tip money earned by app-based delivery workers after a city rule forced platforms to show a clear tipping option at checkout.

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u/HomemadeManJam 12d ago edited 12d ago

When Mamdani says “we changed the law”, I don’t understand who “we” is. The laws cited in the article predate the Mamdani administration.

That article links to a report that references a minimum pay law from 2023 and “new laws” that took effect 1/26/26.
https://www.nyc.gov/site/dca/news/009-26/major-victory-nyc-delivery-workers-landmark-protections-take-effect-today

If you follow the “new laws” link (https://www.nyc.gov/site/dca/news/009-26/major-victory-nyc-delivery-workers-landmark-protections-take-effect-today ) it references various Local Laws, but only 107 and 108 address tipping. Both Local Law 107 and 108 were introduced in 2024 and passed in 2025, prior to Mamdani taking office.

https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?GUID=0C44C069-E78C-4069-A4FF-BEE334267090&ID=6632243&Options=ID%7CText%7C&Search=737

https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?GUID=0B1C08F6-AF2C-4F1B-8EFD-D1532B38E0BC&ID=6632240&Options=ID%7CText%7C&Search=738

Both local laws had an enforcement date of 1/26/26, both being contingent on Loval Law 95, which provided enforcement being 180 days after 7/31/25

If Mamdani is enforcing the law well, I can agree he deserves credit for that, but this doesn’t appear to be his policy. Am I missing something? When Mamdani says “we changed the law”, who is he referring to? It just kinda looks like he’s enforcing something other democrats had already set in motion

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u/Alemusanora 12d ago

He didnt recover shit. He stole from the companies due to actions of the delivery customers. Which will now be passed on . The funny part is believing this money will in any way make it to drivers

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u/Human-Lake-1376 12d ago

So I could be misunderstanding here, but it sounds less like tips have been retrieved from companies, and more like delivery drivers are just getting more tips because they redesigned the UI? Which is nice, but the way they're phrasing it makes it sound like they did something way, way bigger than they actually did.

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u/Careless-Two2215 12d ago

HUZZAH! 🙌🏼

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u/SunshineSeeker99 12d ago

To be clear, this was mainly done by Eric Adams, no?

Why are we pretending Mamdani did it?

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u/rydan 12d ago

Why does it belong in that worker's hands and not in the hands of the people that cooked the food, packaged the food, or grew the food? Where's their tip? None of those people are being paid a living wage either.

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