Two years after Seattle implemented its landmark app-based worker minimum payment ordinance, better known as the “PayUp” law, the results are in, and they confirm what we at the Washington Policy Center warned from the beginning. This policy, which forces delivery platforms to pay drivers nearly $30 per hour before tips and mileage, has backfired spectacularly.
In the WPC 2022 analysis, “The Seattle City Council Continues Its War Against Flexible Jobs and the Gig Economy,” WPC argued that artificially inflating wages for independent contractors would lead to higher consumer prices, fewer orders, and ultimately less work for the very drivers the law claimed to help. History has proven that prediction correct.
DoorDash’s recent report, “Two Years Later: Evaluating the Harmful Impacts of Seattle’s Delivery Law,” lays out the damage clearly. From January 2023 to January 2025, monthly average sales per store on DoorDash in Seattle grew only about 5%, compared to 20–40% growth in peer cities like Denver, Portland, and San Francisco. Seattle has become the most expensive delivery market in the United States. Restaurants are suffering, with many small businesses already in a state of financial stress.
Seattle drivers earned more than 20% less per hour spent on the app in 2024 than in 2023, with the decline reaching nearly 25% by the third quarter of 2025. Wait times between offers have exploded, nearly five times higher than pre-law levels. Fewer deliveries mean the higher per-trip pay is spread across dramatically reduced volume. A National Bureau of Economic Research study confirmed that lower tips and fewer orders completely offset the mandated base pay increases.
Seattle’s Office of Labor Standards (OLS) released a report claiming the law is “working,” citing modest hourly gains and slight order growth during the first 18 months. Yet even the Seattle Times noted this analysis starts after the law took effect and ignores the broader collapse in activity compared to pre-2024 levels. GeekWire covered the dueling narratives, but the real-world data from platforms and independent research tells a consistent story of reduced earnings and access.
This is the same pattern WPC highlighted previously. Heavy-handed regulation treating flexible gig work like traditional employment destroys the very flexibility that attracts workers and customers. Consumers now face the highest fees in the country, restaurants lose sales, and drivers sit idle longer for diminished total income.
Seattle’s leaders should heed the evidence. Repealing or substantially reforming the PayUp law is the only path forward that actually helps working people and small businesses. Until then, this policy stands as a textbook example of how progressive mandates can hurt the very communities they aim to uplift.
