By Erica C. Barnett
1. Former city councilmember Sara Nelson’s effort to repeal a law that increased the way “gig” workers’ salaries are calculated, which would have reduced their pay substantially and increased profits for companies like Uber and Doordash, died that September after six months of heated debate. (The proposal would have effectively overturned the 
PayUp law, just adopted the previous year, whicih required companies to pay some of the expenses drivers previously had to absorb—expenses that pushed drivers’ pre-tip pay below the legal minimum wage). Although four council members voted for the bill in committee, it died quietly in late 2024.
A recent study by the city’s Office of Labor Standards now confirms what many drivers themselves said when testifying against the Nelson bill: Between January 2024 and July 2025, the average pay for drivers working for the five largest delivery companies average pay increased despite a reduction in tips, indicating that the legislation raising worker pay succeeded at its goal. The study looked at the approximately 92,000 workers who drive for companies like Doordash, most of whom work part-time and use multiple apps.
What’s more, predictions that drivers would get fewer orders did not come true—instead, the number of orders grew by 3.2 percent. The number of drivers increased by a similar amount in the same period—2.8 percent.
Pre-tip pay for “engaged time”—time spent actively completing orders—rose to an average of $30.12 during the study period, after subtracting mileage expenses (the report does not include an average prior to 2024). Pay for “online time,” which includes time drivers spent waiting for orders to come in, rose to an average of $15.98 an hour. This was despite an increase in fees by delivery companies, which add to the cost of orders.
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The PayUp law required delivery companies to report detailed information about drivers and their earnings, which is how OLS had access to such an expansive dataset.
The report did confirm that tips declined a bit (by an average of $2.37 a week) after worker wages went up, increasing the cost of deliveries, but noted that the percentage of workers’ income made up by tips was much lower, since drivers’ new base pay is now more consistent and predictable. Most drivers work part-time, with average weekly wages rising from $314.40 to $341.62, including tips.
2. Three city councilmembers—Council President Joy Hollingsworth, Debora Juarez, and Eddie Lin—will propose legislation next week that would ban large new data centers inside city limits, they announced yesterday. The legislation comes in response to reports that unnamed companies were planning five data centers; according to the Seattle Times, which reported the initial news, two of the companies withdrew their proposals this week.
Editor’s note: This item initially said that the data centers were proposed on City Light-owned property. City Light told PubliCola that none of the centers were planned for City Light property. We regret the error.
Thanks Joe, I hear you. I disagree with your position that you’ve presented in the past that homelessness is mostly cause by drug addiction, and see it as far far more multi-dimensional social issue that involves cost of living and other social issues, and cannot be solved by wielding the iron hand of sweeps and jails. It seems you take my heated rhetoric to task, but I can only point to the heated rhetoric of those who see the streets of Seattle as a nuclear waste zone in need of cleansing, as is common from some of the commenters here who otherwise present themselves as “liberal.” Do you take them to task as well? If so I haven’t seen it, but as a former homeless person, as you say, is such heated rhetoric justified?
Apologies, this was meant as a reply to Joe Bernstein below.
I don’t think most homelessness is caused by drug addiction. I think mental illness of other kinds is another frequent cause (the likeliest in my own case), and I also think homelessness can be caused by release from prison, foster care, the military, and other such breeding grounds, as well as by economic and, for that matter, natural causes. (I list “homelessness” as a skill on LinkedIn partly because I think I could be helpful come The Big One.) And sometimes it can even be caused by youthful pigheadedness. A much younger former housemate where I live now, my only address so far since leaving homelessness, interpreted my ability to escape it (which literally took a village) as meaning he could too, so why not? Argh.
I don’t bash the right-wing trolls here because feeding trolls is always a bad idea. Sometimes when they touch on things I know something about, I ask them for their evidence, which of course they don’t have. (Most recently when some idiot was complaining that of course nudity was illegal in Seattle parks, which it isn’t.) But I’m not here to feed trolls otherwise. For that matter, I don’t usually see right-wing trolls here actually saying that Jonathan Choe is right about anything, so I think you’re exaggerating a bit. If people say something like “In my experience Seattle is a hellhole”, how can I refute that? But if people say “We should jail all the homeless”, well, I don’t remember seeing that here.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I have other ideas about engagement but that’s beside the point.
Glad to see Joy Hollingsworth coming around and starting to support initiatives like the data center ban that help ordinary Seattle folks in her district, not just rich folks. Let’s hope it’s a TREND! She really was making herself very vulnerable politically by supporting all of the centrist-right-wing stuff on the Council, when Katie won key parts (the most populated parts) of Joy’s district by 16 points!
Everywhere these super-sized AI data centers have been built, the utility bills of everyone living around the centers goes up dramatically. These data centers are energy hogs, sometimes taking ups the energy needs of entire cities. Need to find a better solution like they are doing in China – locating the data centers underwater or in year-around cold climates (northern Alaska?) to take advantage of “natural cooling,” or in areas with high-sun/wind so that the centers can use alternative and independent sources of energy.
That’s of course all true, but such a measure is only symbolic because no data centers can possibly be built in the land-constrained city of Seattle. I would suggest it’s merely a performative vote to burnish some cred, and should be discarded when considering actual political positions of actual problems facing Seattle.
Speaking of Sara Nelson, what is up with her serial sour grapes missives on LinkedIn?
LOL! Thanks fellow Sam! Must be that she, like some commenters here, “expect better” of Seattle because we haven’t warehoused all homeless people in jails, along with all other undesirables. How could we Not see timeless social problems can be solved by limiting population-wide freedoms (such as privacy and freedom of speech) and treating all undesirables as trash?
Years ago, I concluded, from her jailing a left-wing activist for not helping her locate other left-wing activists, that Jenny Durkan had a mental category of “riffraff” whom she hated, and all left-wing activists and all homeless people were members. Since I was homeless at the time, her election as Seattle mayor struck fear into me, but apart from her repeated efforts to deny me access to drinkable water, she didn’t affect me personally all that much.
Sarah Nelson strikes me as different because she’s been quite open about being an addict, and wanting services for other addicts, including homeless ones. She’s no friend to the homeless, but she doesn’t passionately hate them either.
Sarah Nelson got blown out by 25 points in her recent Council race because people realized she was a “closet Republican” doing the bidding of rich folks in Seattle against the interests of everyone else. She only won the lakefront areas and wealthy enclaves like Broadmoor, Laurelhurst, and Magnolia.