‘It’s all a hustle’: How these rideshare and delivery drivers make extra cash

Gig workers for companies such as Uber, DoorDash, Lyft, and Philadelphia-based Gopuff don’t get health insurance or other expensive workers benefits. The new Trump administration isn’t expected to change that.

Drivers have found some other ways to boost their income:

Wilmington-based Carvertise is recruiting drivers who pick up passengers or deliver food to accept advertising wraps on their cars and to drive around public events, such as Eagles games, as rolling billboards.

Separately, DoorDash says its Pennsylvania drivers are signing up for its recently renewed pilot program that matches up to 4% of drivers’ income with cash grants. The grants can be used to purchase discount employee benefits, though they aren’t enough to pay for health insurance or retirement contributions.

“I’m an Uber driver. I’m a Lyft driver. I do it all. It’s a hustle,” said Miata Morris of Philadelphia.

When ride orders dropped during the pandemic, a family friend told her about Carvertise: “Just put their decal on your car, and you get paid.”

She drove her Hyundai Tucson to Carvertise’s Delaware shop, where a formfitting fabric skin was applied to the car with paint-safe adhesive.

Morris has since advertised companies including AAA, Jefferson Health and Rita’s Ice. The advertiser funds an initial $200 in ad fees and bonus. Then, every two or three weeks, “they send me to what they call ‘swarms.’ I get $150 for an hour to go to an event and drive around in my car,” Morris said.

“One month I made $1,000. It more than covers the cost of my car,” she said.

There are complications. When she was advertising Rita’s, “everybody would stop me at the light. They’d be flagging me down, ‘Oh, Rita’s is delivering!’ I had to tell them it’s not that.”

Morris sees the hustle as a road forward for her career, but not her destination.

“I own a salon, transitioning to a cosmetology school. And I’m a financial adjuster for a collision shop, like an in-house accountant. I am in business,” she explained.

Gigs help pay the bills, she said — whether she’s driving a client or showing a company’s brand.

Uber driver Dana Parker of Wyncote found Carvertise through a quick Google search when gigs slowed in 2020.

At first he found there were more would-be drivers than available ads. Finally he got his first assignment and drove to Wilmington to get his Toyota RAV 4 wrapped for AAA.

This fall, besides collecting an initial $200, he’s been paid $200 to spend 60 to 90 minutes driving around the parking lot at Eagles home games.

“I have an Eagles banner on the side of the car,” Parker said. “I take pictures with people, talk to people.”

“I don’t get into the game. It’s a tailgate thing,” he added, laughing. “I’ll be doing it hopefully for the rest of the season. Then see what other campaigns are available.”

Brielle Everson, a DoorDash driver and president of her class at Delaware Technical Community College at its Dover campus, was recommended last year by DelTech president Mark Brainard to Carvertise cofounder Greg Star and his staff as a true believer in the school. She signed up to get paid for wrapping her Toyota Camry with a DelTech ad.

“Your car is a very bright, noticeable advertisement. You will get eyes on it,” Everson said she was told. “I loved going out and talking about DelTech.”

She admitted getting tired of strangers stopping her to ask about the ads when she took the car on personal trips, but she made a little over $1,000 over the balance of the school year. “That’s completely passive income. It’s phenomenal.”

After her 2024 graduation, Everson worked several months for Carvertise as a business development specialist.

In early 2024, DoorDash rolled out a pilot program for its Pennsylvania drivers: Those who earned at least $1,000 as “Dashers” over three months, not counting tips, would collect an extra 4% of their income into a cash account, managed at DoorDash’s expense by San Francisco-based Stride Savings LLC via Nebraska-based i3 Bank.

Unlike a 401(k) savings retirement account, the money could be used to help pay for employee benefits or cashed out as needed.

DoorDash called it a “Portable Benefits Savings Program” and urged state lawmakers to accept it as a reasonable benefit package for gig drivers to receive as “independent contractors,” instead of classifying “app-based” gig workers as full-time employees entitled to benefits — a designation gig employers prefer to avoid.

Robert Mason of West Chester quit a retail-pharmacy job to drive full-time for DoorDash, which has flexible hours that make it easier to plan time with his family.

“I bring in $500 to $1,200 a week, depending on how hard I hit it,” he said. “I ramp it up if I need to make the electric bill that week.”

He qualified for the 4% additional payments after positive customer ratings boosted his DoorDash record to “platinum” status and has become a company spokesperson in favor of the program.

“They aggregate your pre-tip earnings and put 4% on top of that into a bank account,” Mason said. “You can cash it out anytime without worrying about paperwork. If my car needs a new tire, if my kid uses an inhaler that’s more expensive than I planned, it’s nice to know I have it.”

Three-year DoorDash driver Kristopher Richardson, of Philadelphia, uses his “portable benefit” to save for child care and legal bills and “to take my kids to the movies.”

Since he started driving, Richardson said, he’s also taken on a full-time job as director of maintenance at an apartment complex. But Richardson says it’s worth keeping access to picking up additional hours at DoorDash so he can afford the discounted benefits and the extra cash: “You don’t need to maintain minimum hours, once you qualify.”

A bill that would both make it easier for gig employers to offer DoorDash-style savings accounts, but also confirm that gig drivers would be classed as “independent contractors,” passed a Pennsylvania Senate committee hearing last summer by an 8-6 vote.

But most Democrats on the panel, worried such a law could leave more workers without health insurance, voted no, suggesting it would have a hard time passing in the Democratic-controlled state house.

DoorDash issued a review of the pilot program on Dec. 7. The company says most of the workers used the money for time off or as a cushion for emergencies. About one in 10 said they used the money for health-related expenses. Just one in 25 said they were putting it aside for retirement.