[Manuel_D]

No, discontinuing depreciation is not a universal human trait. You bet that when I drive for work I expense the depreciation on my car. And and Uber and Lyft driver worth his or her salt deducts the depreciation of driven miles from taxable income. Go on Uber and Lyft driver forums and this is in every beginner's guide. This notion that most drivers aren't accounting for depreciation is just not true.

[woodruffw]

> No, discontinuing depreciation is not a universal human trait. You bet that when I drive for work I expense the depreciation on my car.

The fact that you're allowed to expense your car's deprecation indicates that this is not a long-term externality for you. Of course people take advantage of reimbursements available to them; the fact that none applies here is the thing being discussed.

Again: being "worth his or her salt" reveals the point here: the point of a minimum wage is to ensure that people who aren't financially literate are, in theory, afforded a baseline quality of life. It's fine if we don't agree about the civic value of that, but that's what it boils down to: not punishing people with a life of privation for not having the skills, means, or anything else that others have.

[Manuel_D]

I don't doubt that there are some Uber and Lyft drivers that fail to take into account depreciation. But the vast majority do. Because they're financially incentivized to do so, in order to deduct from taxable income. People tend to like free money.

I stand by my point: the idea that a significant portion of ride share drivers are failing to account for depreciation is ridiculous.