{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,14]],"date-time":"2026-08-14T20:44:54Z","timestamp":1786740294958,"version":"build-2736575974"},"posted":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"group-title":"SSRN","reference-count":0,"publisher":"Elsevier BV","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"abstract":"<jats:p>On August 1, 2025, new minimum per-trip pay rates took effect for New York City ride-hail drivers, the implementing component of a broader rule package adopted by the Taxi and Limousine Commission in June 2025 to address platform manipulation of driver availability. Using the Commission's public trip-record dataset for 482 million non-shared in-city trips spanning January 2024 through February 2026, I document a sharp and persistent change in platform pay behaviour at the August 2025 effective date. Holding the 2024 minimum-pay formula fixed as a counterfactual yardstick, the share of trips paid within two percent of the modal pay multiplier dropped by 22 percentage points for Lyft (from 76 to 55 percent) and 14 percentage points for Uber (from 59 to 45 percent) in the first month after the rule. The drop appeared in both Manhattan and outer-borough trips, ruling out a spatial confound from contemporaneous congestion-pricing changes. Through February 2026, bunching continued to decline gradually rather than re-anchoring at the new floor. Realised driver pay rose by 2.7 percent (Uber) to 3.8 percent (Lyft), broadly consistent with the Commission's stated 5 percent increase target. The findings indicate that the August 2025 rule did not merely shift platforms to a new floor; it changed the structure of platform pricing from one anchored at the regulatory minimum to one in which payments dispersed across a continuous range above the floor. The aggregate data cannot identify the mechanism behind this dispersion, which may reflect strategic responses to the new rule's elimination of automatic utilisation-rate adjustments, driver supply responses, or platform implementation choices that may continue to evolve.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.2139\/ssrn.6638758","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,24]],"date-time":"2026-04-24T13:45:06Z","timestamp":1777038306000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["After the Floor Moved: NYC Ride-Hail Driver Pay Behaviour Following the Minimum Pay Rule Change of August 2025"],"prefix":"10.2139","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-8477-9393","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Boon Chuan","family":"Lim","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"78","container-title":[],"original-title":[],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,14]],"date-time":"2026-08-14T20:01:29Z","timestamp":1786737689000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.ssrn.com\/abstract=6638758"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.6638758","relation":{},"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"subtype":"preprint"}}