IRI Cited in NPR Weekend Edition

Immigration Research Initiative’s Anthony Capote was featured in National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition” on Saturday April 8, 2023, for his testimony on New York City’s pending pay scale for app-based delivery workers.  

 Capote testified at a public hearing on Friday April 7 urging city officials to make good on their promise to set and implement a strong hourly wage for the roughly 65,000 essential workers in New York City working for apps like Door Dash, Grub Hub, and Uber EATS. 

The hearing, held by the city’s Department for Consumer and Worker Protection, concerned a new proposal for paying deliveristas that falls woefully short of the agency’s original proposal from December 2022. Under the current proposal, delivery workers would make just $19.96 per hour by the time the rule goes fully into effect in 2025, down from the original $23.82. It also gives companies the option to continue using a predatory pricing model for delivery workers’ wages that only pays them for the time spend with food in hand rather than all the time they spend on the job.  

Immigration Research Initiative organized a sign-on letter and submitted public testimony urging the city to reject the new proposal in favor of DCWP’s original rule that would’ve been the first in the nation to require delivery platforms to pay workers hourly, regardless of how many orders they complete per shift.  

NPR reporter Dara Kerr used Capote’s testimony in her story on the matter, which aired on “Weekend Edition,” on Saturday and “All Things Considered” on Monday April 10.