Peanuts for Monkeys

The reality of Taxi Income – Less than Minimum Wages

Some drivers may think they are doing well but when you break our income down and compare what we take with a standard wage earners who get benefits and penalties we really are badly off.

To begin with the income potential for drivers is extremely low.  

 If a driver takes $400.00 (that is on a very good week night) in a shift we then have to take a lease fee of $80.00 and fuel costs of about $45.00 out.   That leaves $275.00.  

 From this we must deduct 10% GST leaving $247.50.   

Then if you allow 9% super that is reduced to $225.23.  

Allow the equivalent of holiday and sick leave and you have $198.22.  

Divide that by twelve and you have $16.51 per hour.    That does not take into account that we work twelve hours and should get time and ½ after eight hours (meaning our income is the equivalent of $13.00 if we did get penalties, the equivalent of 14 hours work).   

 There are other incidentals such as income protection insurance which I have not taken into account.  

Now to take $400.00 in a shift we must take $33.33 per hour.   Not as easy as it seems.   Some hours we may take $60.00, others we take nothing.   Many hours we sit for an hour to get a $10.00 fare, particularly after midnight.  

If we don’t wait out for the early morning FIFO traffic we get complaints that there are not sufficient cabs for demand.    Day drivers would find it very hard to take $300.00 with similar costs.  

As a night driver I have taken as little as $170.00 (with twenty years’ experience).   There are only a few periods when we can take $60.00+ an hour (early Saturday evening and from 11.00 pm Sat – 1.00am Sun) as people travel to the suburbs and others come back into town.  

From 2.00 am Sun our fares are all one way from the entertainment precincts to the suburbs with empty return trips (therefore average $35.00 per hour take).   This extra profit is then countered by extra pay-in and fuel costs (approx. $50.00 more than other shifts).

When the income is peanuts the drivers are going to be monkeys.