A life worth living

benfell

See updates through February 18, 2023, at end of post.


Please, if you would, and especially if you’re young enough never to have heard the song, take a few minutes to listen to Paul McCartney’s “When I’m Sixty Four,”[1] which he apparently wrote when he was 14 years old, and was included in the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967) album.[2]

On one level, it’s a sweet and silly love song, whose protagonist is the male half of an ordinary English couple contemplating a life together ahead. Here are the lyrics:

The Beatles didn’t record it until 1967,[3] by which time, they surely knew that however their lives worked out, it wouldn’t be like this.

Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four?[4]

And so I detected a note of mockery, perhaps even condescension, at the protagonist’s limited aspiration. More charitably, one might suspect social commentary on the limits to social mobility (“We shall scrimp and save”[5]), though I would not expect this of a 14-year old.

But even such a life as this is one I have been denied.

It is true I have made mistakes.

First and foremost, I followed my father’s advice and pursued a career in computer programming. He was correctly concerned that I had shown no direction. And he wasn’t wrong that I would be interested in programming. Admiring the Star Trek character Spock, I was.

Computer programming, software engineering, software development—whatever you call it—requires a particular, intensely linear, extremely reductive, and binary mindset. It’s not a way that normal human beings think, which is actually a very, very good thing, and the consequence for me was that, as a programmer, I couldn’t hold a normal human conversation with normal human beings.

And so, I burned out by 1985. And worse, failed to realize I had burned out. This had been the wrong career choice for me and I would bounce back in to high technology and then back out, landing hard—very hard—two more times, most recently with the dot-com bust in 2001.

I have not been able to find real employment, meaning employment that offers pay that one can live on, some hope of vacation, health insurance, retirement, and the rest, or that recognizes the education (up to and including a Ph.D.) I have obtained in the meantime, since. I have landed as an Uber driver.[6] Uber is notorious for cutting driver pay in a likely vain attempt to turn a profit[7] and they are abusive toward drivers in a multitude of ways.[8] Lyft is no better, but being smaller, gets less coverage.

Their latest pay cut is a doozy. I’m sure it’s at least a quarter or a third of what they pay us after their commission; it feels like 40 percent. It arrived just in time for Christmas. It eviscerates the margin I have to live on (after operating costs, which come out of my pocket). I no longer have a way to live.

But hey, that’s capitalism. Nobody gave a damn. Nobody would let me have a real job. It’s a continuation of my entire life experience, in which my father beat me, school kids relentlessly teased and bullied me, nearly all of my employers have been in some way abusive, and now they won’t hire me for anything at all.[9] I’ve had career counselors look me in the eye and tell me there is nothing to be done. I’ve even been ghosted by temp agencies.[10]

There are a few people in this world who care about me. But their concern does not translate into anything that makes my life a life worth living. And it’s clear at least some of them still discount what I say when I tell them of my frustration with the job market. Keep trying, they say. There must be something you haven’t tried, they say. “Applying for jobs doesn’t work until it does,” they say. But not one of them has a substantive suggestion. Not one of them, even those who pull in six-figure incomes, can offer me a referral.[11] Nearly 22 years of failure is plainly, for them, woefully insufficient evidence.

I have learned a few times now, and very much the hard way, that when you need friends is when you find out who your friends really are. I have very, very few.

I’m now entirely cut off from academia, which is the one place I can have the conversations I miss badly with people at my level of educational attainment. That all my available time is taken up driving for Uber means I don’t have time to make new friends to replace the false ones. I haven’t had a serious romantic relationship since 1990. I’m just living to drive for Uber, which is to say, I’m just living to be abused, and I’m just living to be denied any dignity whatsoever.

The Beatles may have scorned a life such as I cannot now even hope for.

And now I can’t even afford to live.

Update, January 3, 2023: This post has been repeatedly edited for clarity since it was first published. In particular, I had difficulty I shouldn’t have had getting the embedded lyrics to “When I’m Sixty-Four”[12] in the right place.

Update, January 13, 2023: I was shocked when my doctor suggested Tums.

I’ve been having horrible post-nasal drip and the sort of cough that follows from horrible post-nasal drip. The usual remedies weren’t effective, so my doctor suggested that acid reflux might be the cause. And it turns out to be the case.

The stress of my situation, having no apparent way out of Uber driving even as driver pay drops to effectively nothing[13] is now having a direct impact on my health.

Suggestions have been offered but these do not address the abuse I have been enduring from Uber, nor do they make my life even remotely financially sustainable. In addition, there are roads I have been down before, that I think are no longer feasible, and that I am in any case unwilling to endure again. Those are, or were, roads for people who expect to be able to significantly outlive them.

I see lots of talk about how people should seek help rather than contemplate suicide. The assumption that attends such talk is that suicide is purely the result of psychological (individual) problems and generally refuses to acknowledge, let alone address systemic socioeconomic problems.

I’ve have been pleading for help for decades and no one has meaningfully responded. If folks really value my life, they need to come up with a way to make it a life that’s livable. Because I can’t live this one.

Update, January 14, 2023: A New York Times article focuses on New York City Uber drivers, who enjoy some wage protection but are nonetheless drowning in operational costs, as I am. A court recently reversed an increase in those wages saying the Taxi and Limousine Commission needs to actually justify the increase. The article suggests to me that when Uber claims driver earnings are rising,[14] they include the commission that they take out of those earnings and that drivers in fact never see.

We don’t know how large that commission really is because, unless passengers tell us, we have no way of knowing how much Uber charges them. Uber’s cut has often been larger than what the company claims.[15] Even as tax time approaches, I’ll only know what Uber claims to have charged me in commissions and includes in my gross income; we know little of how this might be manipulated for the company’s own tax purposes.

It’s worse in most other places, where drivers enjoy no labor protection whatsoever, including in Pittsburgh, where drivers have seen what feels to me like a 40 percent cut in pay. This cut is existential for me, leaving me nothing to live on.[16] It means I must decline many rides because by the time I get to the pickup location, pick the passenger up, and take them where they’re going, I’ll have spent every penny I’d have earned on the trip.[17]

As cruel as Uber is, the bigots who have refused to consider my job applications for 22 years enable that cruelty and are therefore every bit as responsible.[18]

The New York Times article is additionally useful in showing how drivers take on costs they can’t easily back out from, including car purchases and debt that accumulates from a low and uncertain income,[19] even as drivers still have rent to pay, groceries to buy, and, crucially, cars to keep running. To give an idea, my own car, now a year and a half old, is just about to hit 100,000 miles. I still have about four and a half years of payments, which themselves are on the order of rent, to go on it.

But, we are to believe, it is the investor class that is oppressed by the working class. Don’t believe me? Ask Tom Perkins, a founder of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm[20] that ran the company (Linuxcare) where I had my last real job (that ended 22 years ago) into the ground.

Update, January 24, 2023: I’ve talked to a few passengers now and from what they say they’re paying Uber, versus what Uber is paying me, it very much looks like Uber is taking something like a sixty percent cut of each fare. This is up from twenty-five or thirty percent when I first started with Lyft in 2016 and Uber in 2017. Drivers need to cover their operating costs from and somehow live on the forty percent they’re leaving us and the numbers flatly don’t work out.

At the same time, passengers believe they’re paying a little more, so it’s no wonder Uber has been hiding passenger payments from drivers.[21] And all this is consistent with previous reporting.[22]

Update, January 26, 2023, revised January 27: I just got my 2022 tax forms from Uber. They admit to taking around 43 percent cut of my gross receipts in November and December 2022 and just under 39 percent for the entire year. I’m not an accountant and I don’t know what other fuckery might account for the difference between these numbers and the 60 percent I believe they’re taking, based on what passengers are telling me, versus what Uber is paying me.

Supposedly, I grossed over $100,000 last year. It definitely doesn’t feel like it; indeed, while my tax preparer will have the final word, it looks like my net out of that was a little over $23,000.

Update, January 27, 2023: About 30 years ago, in Graton, a small, unincorporated town north of Sebastopol, California, long before it got gentrified, there was an old lady who occasionally opened up her restaurant on Graton Road. It was something she clearly did when she felt like it and only when she felt like it. (Note, January 29, 2023: My mother informs me this old lady’s name was Nellie.)

I was still an omnivore and she cooked a fine breakfast for not a whole lot of money, so I made it a point to stop in when I could.

One day, she imparted some advice that’s stuck with me. The fastest way to go out of business, she warned, is to charge too much. The second fastest way to go out of business, she continued, is to charge too little.

One of the points of contention about Uber driver worker misclassification is that Uber drivers do not set their own rates. They work for whatever Uber chooses to pay them.

I previously wrote of Uber’s latest pay cut that “I’m sure it’s at least a quarter or a third of what they pay us after their commission; it feels like 40 percent.”[23] Today, I was flabbergasted all afternoon by how little I was being paid for rides. I’m sure now that the cut is fully 40 percent.

By that old lady’s reckoning, Uber is choosing to put its drivers out of business.

I explained in that post that this situation is not sustainable.[24] It is now a full crisis. This cannot continue for any length of time whatsoever. It must end now.

But nothing has come through. And the message I’m getting is that death is the only way out.

Update, January 28, 2023, added here January 29: My patience with the driving in Pittsburgh is growing very, very short.

Today, I was on unfamiliar ground in a rural area either of Allegheny County or Washington County, looking for a street. I guess I took too long. Some asshole in a pickup truck honked at me as I finally found the street and made the turn. I mean, come on, none of these people have ever had to look for an unfamiliar address before?

I decided to make that the last ride of the night as it was apparent there was a Penguins game, and I was in no mood to be sucked into everybody wanting to get me stuck in traffic trying to get to PPG Arena. Even as I dropped that ride off in the Strip District (I’m guessing it’s named for its geographic shape but there’s only one “strip club” there, at least that I know of), I was deluged with ride requests for small amounts, like I’m gonna take under five bucks to go get stuck for a half hour in PPG Arena traffic.

So I headed home along my usual routine, stopping for a car wash, adding a stop at Whole Foods Market (pretty much indispensable for vegans), and then finally stopping for gas. But as I was walking out of the Whole Foods, you know, where people are supposed to be nice, I noticed one lady backing out of a parking space. There was a guy, who had backed into his space, in a monster pickup truck on the other side of the lane, pulling out forward. He couldn’t even wait for her to finish pulling out to start encroaching her from behind. Of course, she saw him edging out and turned more sharply to leave some room, but she had cars on both sides, so this would have (I didn’t actually see this) slowed her down considerably. No matter, he just couldn’t wait to get moving, even when there was no way he was getting there faster for being an asshole.

It’s this senseless aggression that really gets to me. Because if these people are that aggressive, they’re guaranteed to get into a collision. Possibly with me.

I like my car. I want to keep it. I don’t want Pittsburgh roads destroying it. I don’t want Pittsburgh drivers destroying it.

But oh yeah, in one of their stupid driver surveys, Uber wanted to know if I feel safe driving for them today. They don’t ask why I feel threatened, though it’s a combination of asshole drivers, a complete lack of traffic enforcement,[25] and, of course, an awful lot of people fucking shooting at each other because they can’t tell their guns apart from their penises, which is to say that Uber is really just wondering if it’s time to gaslight us on safety again.[26]

And yeah, it would be real nice if my car didn’t get shot at.

Update, February 13, 2023: If the strike by Uber and Lyft drivers in Pittsburgh this weekend, specifically from 3:00 pm Friday, February 10, through 3:00 pm Sunday, February 12,[27] had any impact, I’ve yet to hear of it. I’m not optimistic that either company will respond. Even if they relent a bit on driver pay, which I believe they have cut by 40 percent in recent months, the abuse I find intolerable[28] will surely continue.


Fig. 3. Graph of estimated daily average net income (in blue, using Internal Revenue Service mileage allowance) by month since January 2022, against estimated daily operating costs (in red, using Internal Revenue Service mileage allowance), what the federal minimum wage would be for a six-and-a-half hour day had it kept pace with productivity[29] (in green), the (outdated[30]) federal poverty line[31] (in light orange), and the Pennsylvania minimum wage[32] (in orange), created by author, February 10, 2023, revamped February 18, updated daily.

The entire point of the gig economy, the reason I consider it a neoliberal wet dream come true, is to impose upon workers their absolute disposability and infinite replaceability. Uber and Lyft drivers exist solely as means to corporate ends and the companies are positively orgasmic about their power over drivers.

But I didn’t want to undermine the strike any further than I already had—I didn’t even hear of it until I’d quit on Friday—so I took Saturday and Sunday off, even though I really can’t afford to.

Among other things, I went to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and saw the 58th annual Carnegie International exhibition. For a relatively conservative institution, this was a remarkable statement about social inequality[33] and a powerful demonstration of the utility of the humanities in addressing these issues, prompting me to write a new blog post entitled, “Ignorance cannot now be an excuse for inaction.”

As with the Uber and Lyft strike, however, I strongly doubt anything will come of the Carnegie exhibit.

Update, February 14, 2023: I have already explained that with the abuse I endure as an Uber driver and with Uber pay cuts—I have no explanation for Engadget’s claim that median driver pay has gone up, even if not enough to match rising fares,[34] because in Pittsburgh, it has gone down,[35] I believe by about 40 percent, and a comparison between what passengers say they are paying and the amounts I am being paid are consistently in the 60 percent-plus range—I am no longer in a tenable situation.[36] Now, in all the years I have been driving people around, first as an airport shuttle driver, then as a taxi driver, now as an Uber and Lyft driver, I have never had a Valentine’s Day as bad as the one I have just had. Never.

At the end of this month, I need to inform my landlord as to whether I will be renewing my lease for another year. In order to answer that question intelligently, my life needs to make some kind of sense.

That means, one way or another, the poverty, the abuse, the torment, the insult I have endured will end.

Because one thing that’s a whole lot more insane than ending it is continuing to endure it.

Update, February 18, 2023: The graph included with the February 13 update is updated dynamically and I revamped it. I replaced it with the new version and a revised caption. A more scholarly analysis is on my page on so-called ‘ridesharing’ drivers on the Irregular Bullshit.

  1. [1]Beatles, “When I’m Sixty Four,” YouTube, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCTunqv1Xt4↩
  2. [2]Genius, “When I’m Sixty-Four,” n.d., https://genius.com/The-beatles-when-im-sixty-four-lyrics↩
  3. [3]Genius, “When I’m Sixty-Four,” n.d., https://genius.com/The-beatles-when-im-sixty-four-lyrics↩
  4. [4]Genius, “When I’m Sixty-Four,” n.d., https://genius.com/The-beatles-when-im-sixty-four-lyrics↩
  5. [5]Genius, “When I’m Sixty-Four,” n.d., https://genius.com/The-beatles-when-im-sixty-four-lyrics↩
  6. [6]David Benfell, “About my job hunt,” Not Housebroken, n.d., https://disunitedstates.org/about-my-job-hunt/; David Benfell, “About that alleged ‘labor shortage,’” Not Housebroken, December 2, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/05/09/about-that-alleged-labor-shortage/↩
  7. [7]David Benfell, “This is not a business plan,” Not Housebroken, November 2, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/06/20/this-is-not-a-business-plan/↩
  8. [8]David Benfell, “I don’t need excuses. I don’t need platitudes. I need a real job,” Not Housebroken, January 30, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/01/30/i-dont-need-excuses-i-dont-need-platitudes-i-need-a-real-job/; David Benfell, “The vulnerability of Uber and Lyft driving,” Not Housebroken, February 18, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/02/18/the-vulnerability-of-uber-and-lyft-driving/; David Benfell, “Gaslighting Uber drivers on safety,” Not Housebroken, November 9, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/04/28/gaslighting-uber-drivers-on-safety/; David Benfell, “Why Uber is not merely a ‘technology platform,’” Not Housebroken, December 18, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/12/18/why-uber-is-not-merely-a-technology-platform/↩
  9. [9]David Benfell, “About my job hunt,” Not Housebroken, n.d., https://disunitedstates.org/about-my-job-hunt/↩
  10. [10]David Benfell, “About that alleged ‘labor shortage,’” Not Housebroken, December 2, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/05/09/about-that-alleged-labor-shortage/↩
  11. [11]David Benfell, “To my friends,” Not Housebroken, May 14, 2021, https://disunitedstates.org/2017/04/01/to-my-friends/↩
  12. [12]Genius, “When I’m Sixty-Four,” n.d., https://genius.com/The-beatles-when-im-sixty-four-lyrics↩
  13. [13]David Benfell, “About my job hunt,” Not Housebroken, n.d., https://disunitedstates.org/about-my-job-hunt/; David Benfell, “A life worth living,” Not Housebroken, January 3, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/12/27/a-life-worth-living/↩
  14. [14]Winnie Hu and Ana Ley, “Uber Drivers Say They Are Struggling: ‘This Is Not Sustainable,’” New York Times, January 12, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/12/nyregion/cab-uber-lyft-drivers.html↩
  15. [15]Dhruv Mehrotra and Aaron Gordon, “Uber And Lyft Take A Lot More From Drivers Than They Say,” Jalopnik, August 26, 2019, https://jalopnik.com/uber-and-lyft-take-a-lot-more-from-drivers-than-they-sa-1837450373; Yujie Zhou, “Uber is hiding customer payments from drivers. Again,” Mission Local, November 16, 2022, https://missionlocal.org/2022/11/uber-hiding-customer-payments-from-drivers/↩
  16. [16]David Benfell, “About my job hunt,” Not Housebroken, n.d., https://disunitedstates.org/about-my-job-hunt/; David Benfell, “A life worth living,” Not Housebroken, January 13, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/12/27/a-life-worth-living/↩
  17. [17]In practice, I have almost no time to decide which rides will be unprofitable, so I’m just refusing all rides for which my pay will be under $10.00. I’m not happy about this. Pittsburgh has steep hills, harsh weather, and crappy bus service; people need these rides whether they’ll be profitable or not. But I need to be earning money.↩
  18. [18]David Benfell, “About my job hunt,” Not Housebroken, n.d., https://disunitedstates.org/about-my-job-hunt/↩
  19. [19]Winnie Hu and Ana Ley, “Uber Drivers Say They Are Struggling: ‘This Is Not Sustainable,’” New York Times, January 12, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/12/nyregion/cab-uber-lyft-drivers.html↩
  20. [20]Tom Perkins, “Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?” Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2014, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304549504579316913982034286↩
  21. [21]Yujie Zhou, “Uber is hiding customer payments from drivers. Again,” Mission Local, November 16, 2022, https://missionlocal.org/2022/11/uber-hiding-customer-payments-from-drivers/↩
  22. [22]Dhruv Mehrotra and Aaron Gordon, “Uber And Lyft Take A Lot More From Drivers Than They Say,” Jalopnik, August 26, 2019, https://jalopnik.com/uber-and-lyft-take-a-lot-more-from-drivers-than-they-sa-1837450373; Faiz Siddiqui, “You may be paying more for Uber, but drivers aren’t getting their cut of the fare hike,” Washington Post, June 9, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/09/uber-lyft-drivers-price-hike/↩
  23. [23]David Benfell, “A life worth living,” Not Housebroken, January 27, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/12/27/a-life-worth-living/↩
  24. [24]David Benfell, “A life worth living,” Not Housebroken, January 27, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/12/27/a-life-worth-living/↩
  25. [25]David Benfell, “Reckless driving as routine,” Not Housebroken, January 27, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2023/01/25/reckless-driving-as-routine/↩
  26. [26]David Benfell, “Gaslighting Uber drivers on safety,” Not Housebroken, January 6, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/04/28/gaslighting-uber-drivers-on-safety/↩
  27. [27]Marcie Cipriani, “Local rideshare drivers stop accepting rides for 48 hours to protest work conditions,” WTAE, February 10, 2023, https://www.wtae.com/article/pittsburgh-rideshare-drivers-lyft-uber-work-conditions/42830261; Liz Kilmer, “Uber, Lyft drivers announce strike across Pittsburgh region,” WPXI, February 10, 2023, https://www.wpxi.com/news/local/uber-lyft-drivers-announce-strike-across-pittsburgh-region/T7SE5T7GHJB7VOD4LG3J4VF34A/↩
  28. [28]David Benfell, “A life worth living,” Not Housebroken, January 29, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/12/27/a-life-worth-living/↩
  29. [29]Dean Baker, “Correction: The $23 an Hour Minimum Wage,” Center for Economic Policy and Research, March 16, 2022, https://cepr.net/the-26-an-hour-minimum-wage/↩
  30. [30]Areeba Haider and Justin Schweitzer, “The Poverty Line Matters, But It Isn’t Capturing Everyone It Should,” Center for American Progress, March 5, 2020, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/poverty-line-matters-isnt-capturing-everyone/↩
  31. [31]U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “Federal poverty level (FPL),” n.d., https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/federal-poverty-level-fpl/↩
  32. [32]U.S. Department of Labor, “State Minimum Wage Laws,” January 1, 2023, https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/state↩
  33. [33]David Benfell, “Ignorance cannot now be an excuse for inaction,” Not Housebroken, February 12, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2023/02/12/ignorance-cannot-now-be-an-excuse-for-inaction/↩
  34. [34]Jon Fingas, “Uber and Lyft driver pay isn’t keeping up with soaring fares, study says,” Engadget, February 14, 2023, https://www.engadget.com/uber-and-lyft-driver-pay-isnt-keeping-up-with-soaring-fares-study-says-173807130.html↩
  35. [35]Marcie Cipriani, “Local rideshare drivers stop accepting rides for 48 hours to protest work conditions,” WTAE, February 10, 2023, https://www.wtae.com/article/pittsburgh-rideshare-drivers-lyft-uber-work-conditions/42830261; Liz Kilmer, “Uber, Lyft drivers announce strike across Pittsburgh region,” WPXI, February 10, 2023, https://www.wpxi.com/news/local/uber-lyft-drivers-announce-strike-across-pittsburgh-region/T7SE5T7GHJB7VOD4LG3J4VF34A/↩
  36. [36]David Benfell, “A life worth living,” Not Housebroken, February 13, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/12/27/a-life-worth-living/↩