App-Based Gig Workers in Texas Earn a Median of $5.12/Hour After Expenses, Below Federal Minimum Wage

After subtracting vehicle expenses, fuel, maintenance, insurance, self-employment taxes, and the cost of benefits that employees receive from employers, app-based gig workers' actual hourly compensation falls far below minimum wage in most states. A 2025 Human Rights Watch survey of 127 platform workers in Texas found median hourly pay of just $5.12 including tips. Why it matters: Workers earning below minimum wage cannot cover basic living expenses, so they take on debt or work unsustainable hours across multiple apps simultaneously, so fatigue-related accidents increase and physical health deteriorates, so medical costs pile up without employer-provided health insurance, so workers become trapped in a cycle of poverty that is invisible in platform-reported 'gross earnings' figures that exclude all expenses. The structural root cause is that platforms report gross fare earnings as 'driver pay' without deducting the substantial vehicle, fuel, insurance, maintenance, and tax costs that the worker bears as an independent contractor, creating an information asymmetry where the true sub-minimum-wage compensation is obscured from regulators, the public, and often from workers themselves before they start.