Seattle Delivery Pay Project.
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Independent research · Seattle, Washington

We’re studying what changed across workers’ full hours online, and listening to the people doing the deliveries.

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The delivery is only part of the working day.

Pay per offer tells one story. Earnings across all the time a worker is logged in can tell another. Time spent waiting for the next order matters, too.

Understand the difference

Time definitions: Seattle OLSApril 2026

Time onlineLogged in & available

Per engaged hour
Earnings divided by time fulfilling offers.

Per online hour
Earnings divided by all time logged in and available.

Schematic only. Blocks are not to scale and show no measured durations or earnings. The earnings definition must also be held consistent when comparing hourly measures.

Delivery time.Waiting time.

The evidence needs a closer look.

Two important studies approach the same policy from different directions. Their results need to be read alongside their methods.

The city’s platform records

A broad view of work after the law.

Seattle OLS examines records from five large platforms during the first 18 months after implementation and reports growth in completed offers over its year-over-year comparison.

Read with this in mind: All records are post-ordinance. This is not a causal before-and-after comparison.

Read the OLS research

Seattle Office of Labor StandardsApril 2026

An, Garin & Kovak

A closer look at incumbent workers.

The working paper compares Seattle workers with workers elsewhere in Washington. For highly attached incumbent drivers in its sample, fewer completed tasks offset higher task pay, leaving monthly earnings approximately unchanged.

Read with this in mind: A result for this studied sample cannot be generalized to every Seattle worker or to citywide order volume.

Read the working paper

Yuan An, Andrew Garin, and Brian K. KovakDecember 2025

Published research, not findings from this project. Read how our study is designed.

What does better pay look like in practice?

We’re looking at the whole picture, combining published research with workers’ self-reported experiences.

Pay per delivery
What workers report about platform pay and how it has changed.
Earnings across online time
Hourly earnings including tips, before work-related expenses.
Tips & order availability
How incumbent workers describe changes since January 2024.
The time between orders
Waiting and utilization in the published evidence, rather than a direct survey measure.
Working across apps
How often workers report having several delivery apps open at once.
Different working lives
Hours worked, optional demographics, and whether delivery is a primary income.

For delivery workers

You do the work. Your experience belongs in the research.

Currently delivering food through apps in Seattle and aged 18 or older? Share what the work looks like for you.

The survey estimates 1–2 minutes. Participation is voluntary. No names or email addresses are requested; avoid identifying details in comments or optional uploads.

Take the survey Participation & what to expect

Help the research reach the people it’s about.

Students, community groups, researchers, and local organizations can help more workers hear about the study.

Get involved
Data collection in progressAs of October 29, 2026

Research in progress. Transparency throughout.

The worker survey is open. This project has not published findings or policy recommendations. We’ll share the methods and limitations alongside any future results.

Follow the progress