What Can Drivers Do if Unemployment Ends?

The FPU, the federal pandemic unemployment compensation, is coming to an end on July 25th. What are you going to do? Let’s assume the worst. Let’s say they don’t extend anything. Are you going to drive for Uber and Lyft? Are you gonna do food delivery?

In this video, I’m going to share with you all the options and give you some ideas to consider. And stick around because at the end of the video, I’m gonna share with you why I do think rideshare driving at this particular time makes sense.

One thing that’s really impacting things today is what you’re seeing on this graph here. You can see the cases went up. We are leading the world in number of cases, that’s not a statistic we should be super proud of.

That really impacts us because if we decide to go out and drive, we’ve got a bigger chance of getting sick because more people are getting sick. In terms of the benefits. Some people got a PPP loan. Most of us got unemployment and that’s coming to an end. Given the situation with the increase in cases, and the incredible number of people unemployed, there’s a chance that the benefits will continue and at some degree, but let’s assume for this video, it’s over.

This was in Forbes magazine. They say, if those benefits run out before Congress can extend them, the effect would be akin to delivering a 50 to 75% pay cut overnight to a huge chunk of the American population.

What Are Your Options?

We’re going to start off with food, and we wrote a great article about this called the best food delivery companies you can work for. We’re hearing that food delivery is paying as good as it’s ever paid. There’s just a lot of demand because a lot of people are still at home. More people are going home. Some places that were opening are now contracting.

I mean, it just makes sense to stay home, right? We don’t want to get sick. So that’s driving up the demand for food delivery. That’s a good option. Check out our article. And and then you can pick one, whether it’s Postmates or DoorDash, where you can deliver groceries with Instacart, or  drive for Uber and Lyft.

Sheme Advice if You Decide to Drive

I got the car right here. I’m ready to bring people in.Got my mask. And really the purpose of the mask is to prevent myself from coughing out through my mouth. Cause that’s where the projectiles come. So this really works much better for me. And I feel much more comfortable. Now if you’re going to drive, you need masks. You need a bunch of masks. As you can see here as a nice image of a mask, this is something you can get on on Amazon.

You can get 50 of them for like $25. They’re only like 50 cents each. If you’re driving for Uber and Lyft, you want to be able to crack your window. They say that for you to get COVID-19 you gotta be close to somebody for about 15 minutes. So you want to keep your window down a little bit and and of course have the mask and then have extra masks for riders and say, here, you need to have a mass to be in my car. Cause I don’t want to get sick.

The ‘Stay at Home’ Option

Staying at home is still an option. What I did as I made this little graph here, and let’s say, you go driving and you do 40 hours at $25 an hour. That would be like a really good week delivering food or an okay week driving people. Let’s say you made $1,000, and then you subtract your expenses, say $150 for gas. To weigh that against unemployment, in California you can earn $450 from unemployment. That’s without the $600 bonus. And you got 40 hours of your life back to do something else and you don’t have the stress of driving.

About driving: Getting into an accident or getting COVID-19 vs being safe at home. Which would you choose? That’s something you need to decide, but this gives you an apples versus orange comparison.

As you can see here over 44 million Americans have filed for unemployment during the coronavirus pandemic. That’s a huge, huge number. How will the government respond to that? We won’t even know until the third week in July, because they’re out on recess.

Key Takeaways and My Recommendation

We’ve got to assume the worst. You have four options: Deliver food, go find some other kinds of work, drive for Uber or Lyft, or you can stay home.

My recommendation is driving for Uber and Lyft. And you may say, well, that’s not as safe. Well, I don’t know that that’s the case. If you’re wearing a mask and they’re wearing a mask and you got the window cracked, you’re in complete control of your environment.

Whereas when you’re delivering food, you’ve got to get out of your car. You got to go into a restaurant who knows what’s in the restaurant. I’ve seen people waiting for 15 minutes for food, right? In a restaurant. They’re just sitting down, waiting for the food so they can get it and go deliver it. And you know, you’re dealing with a lot of people that are in the restaurant and then you gotta get out and you gotta go to the door.

Also, I find driving people a much more pleasurable experience. I can play my music. It’s just, people get in, people get out, it’s simpler. Now they don’t even get in the front seat. They’re going to get in. I got to make sure they got a mask. So all I gotta do is make sure I have extra masks and you can make more money.

There are a lot of people who are staying home, so there’s a small supply of drivers. And what we’re hearing is that because there’s a small supply of drivers, those drivers are getting very, very, very busy plus tips are up because people really appreciate you going out there and driving. So if you’re in a situation where you’re not worried about getting someone sick at home I say, go out and drive for Uber and Lyft. And, and that’s my recommendation. But if you love food delivery, you can’t go wrong with that either.

Be safe, wear your mask, and social distance. I’ll see you next time!