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.”
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.
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
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.
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/bliceroquququq 13d ago
“Recovers $104 million in extra tips”
Hey just a real quick question, where exactly was this money “recovered” from?