This is mostly a good assessment, but the maintenance cost should be reduced - one part of Uber's lending program is covered routine maintenance. Gas at least should be deductible, I don't know whether the car payments can be counted in whole or in part.

The overall point is well taken, though. There are several hits to real income for Uber drivers that aren't shared by other types of low-wage worker, and while "set your own hours" offers more upside than a normal part-time job, it's limited by how many high-demand hours there are in a week. Rather than extra overtime pay, I imagine hours past her current 28 would give steadily diminishing returns.

Great breakdown. Again, though, that's $12.30/hr as 1099 income, subject to self employment taxes,...and no sick days, paid holidays, vacation, unemployment coverage, insurance, etc.

You'd also need to subtract half of the self-employment taxes (equivalent to the employer share of payroll taxes) to get an employee-wage-equivalent figure. Assuming that the $12.3/hr is the net before SE taxes, SE taxes are about $1.74/hr and the employer-share-equivalent is $0.87/hr, leaving a wage-equivalent of $10.43/hr.

Which is just barely above California's minimum wage ($10.00) today, and not (as suggested upthread) better than the most generous minimum wage proposals.

wow, thats quite a thorough calculation of expenses. But I'd assume a leased car probably has less maintanence costs, but certainly added costs for gas.

I'm not sure if you factored in commercial insurance for a leased vehicle which will be more expensive per month, compared to personal auto insurance for own car. Factoring the commercial/rideshare auto insurance in, will leave little wiggle room.