All Uber drivers in this area have really big, shiny, new, expensive cars. I haven’t yet been in a single Uber vehicle around here that wasn’t an SUV or a Jeep. (Are Jeeps considered SUVs, by the way? They feel different.)
Also, I haven’t had a single non-white driver yet. And I never use Uber to go to St Louis. It’s always to go from St Louis.
This is really not the demographic I thought would want to work for Uber.
People who would normally not buy these expensive cars do so because of the potential future earnings working for Uber. It’s a business investment.
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Interesting. That might be true because the cars do look very recently bought. And this would explain why they are SUVs if the drivers want to be able to work in any weather.
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What age group are these drivers? 50+?
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Yes, actually. I only had one fellow a bit under 50 so far. Everybody else is older.
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50+ males cannot get jobs in the corporate world if they are downsized. Age discriminant is rampant. Given the area you are in, that may explain what you are seeing. You would see a different demographic elsewhere.
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Yes, this is a very serious problem. Especially given that retirement age will continue to be pushed up.
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http://valleywag.gawker.com/uber-and-its-shady-partners-are-pushing-drivers-into-su-1649936785
“The subprime lending market that plunged America into the Great Recession is back and as unscrupulous as ever. Instead of mortgages, this time a bubble has formed around auto loans, and reliably ruthless Uber is in the thick of it. Two “partners” in Uber’s vehicle financing program are under federal investigation, but Uber hasn’t slowed its aggressive marketing campaign to get drivers with bad credit to sign up for loans.”
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Oh wow, I had no idea! This is really bad news. Bad, bad news. We are a region that cannot afford to see another bubble collapse.
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Yup. Uber needs drivers desperately. Ideally, drivers who limited options. Getting into the business of predatory lending – what could go wrong?
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A crashing economy would guarantee that the Democrats would be voted out of power in the Presidential election in November.
Not that anybody — including me! — wants a market crash, but no party in American history has gotten a third consecutive turn in a bad economy.
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I didn’t know this but it makes total sense. The whole point of the gig economy is to shift the risk of ownership down to people who can ill afford it. The only property that matters now is intellectual. Everything else is fungible.
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