NASHVILLE — After driving for Lyft for six years, Joni Bicknese decided to invest in a minivan at the beginning of 2020, reasoning that she could make more money if she could transport more riders. Then came what she calls Nashville’s quadruple-whammy: a tornado, coronavirus closures, protests that rocked downtown, then more closures.
Many drivers opted simply to stay home and try to collect unemployment, something that wasn’t available to them before Congress extended benefits to gig workers in response to the economic chaos brought by the virus. But the $600 per week federal supplement ran out last week, leaving just the maximum weekly unemployment benefit of $275 in Tennessee.
Bicknese says business has gone from dismal to tolerable, but only because so many drivers have voluntarily stayed home. Bicknese chose to keep driving because she didn’t think she could make her car and insurance payments on unemployment. March and April were “devastating, horrible,” she said.
“For four or five weeks it was no income. Then what happened is so many drivers filed for unemployment and stopped driving that demand came back,” she said.
Samuel Moore is one of those who left the business. The public school teacher was driving part time for extra cash but quit at the beginning of March over concern about the virus.
“I had intended on driving pretty heavy over the summer full time,” he said. “Alas, that didn’t work out.”
Moore had his main job to fall back on, but others drive as their full-time job. Joy Evans, who moderates a private Facebook group for drivers with more than 2,000 members, said many are worried that the unemployment supplement is ending but demand for rides is still low. Evans estimates that many drivers working full time before the pandemic were probably earning about $60,000 a year. She said they likely won’t be able to get by on just $275 a week.
The pandemic has been particularly harsh on America’s estimated 1.5 million gig workers, who operate largely without safeguards such as minimum wage, unemployment insurance, workers compensation and health insurance.
A spokesman for Uber said the company is offering up to 14 days of financial assistance to drivers diagnosed with COVID-19 or asked to self-isolate by a public health authority and already has provided more than $19 million in aid.
Spokesman Javier Correoso declined to address how many drivers are still on the road, either in Nashville or across the U.S., but did say demand for the service is generally on the rise. “After falling 75% in the second quarter from a year earlier, it’s now at less than a 60% decline from the prior year,” Correoso wrote in an email, citing a call between Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and investors from the beginning of July.
Lyft also declined to release driver numbers but said in an email that the company has begun a pilot project to deliver things like meals and medical supplies to government agencies, nonprofits, businesses and health care organizations.
Rodney Neighbors remembers driving around panicked tourists just before Nashville shut down in March.
“The next day it was a ghost town,” he said. “I thought, ’Oh, my God. What am I going to do?’”
Neighbours was lucky enough to be offered extra hours at a second part-time job until the rideshare business picks up. He says he’s making close to what he did before the pandemic but has to drive a lot farther. He’s also worried about the future.
“If there’s another partial shutdown, no one’s going to be able to afford to take Uber because they won’t have jobs,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Even though business is better now than in March, things aren’t the same as before the pandemic. Instead of well-heeled tourists, Bicknese finds herself driving people on unemployment, factory workers and patients travelling to medical appointments. She recalls giving 25 rides one day without getting a single tip.
And then there are there are the fights over masks. Uber and Lyft now require both drivers and riders to wear them, but Bicknese said customers don’t always co-operate. Just southeast of Nashville in Rutherford County, where she lives, “all it is is fighting people over masks. It’s like the Wild West.”
Driver Samuel Taylor said he started wearing a mask back in March, but passengers were uncomfortable, thinking it meant he was sick. He ended up not driving for several months because of low demand and safety concerns. Taylor lives with his mother, so he said he tries to be extra cautious.
He started driving again a couple of weeks ago, stretching a 10-pack of single-use masks Uber sent him by spraying them with disinfectant and reusing them.
Before the pandemic, Taylor said he would often drive to nearby Franklin in the evenings, looking for business travellers going to the airport or trying to get to Nashville for a night on the town. These days, he mostly picks up locals going to work or heading home.
“Sometimes it’s a waste of time,” he said, noting he’s making about half of what he did before the pandemic. “But I haven’t pushed too much. I’m still testing the waters.”
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was higher in late-morning trading, helped by strength in energy stocks, while U.S. stock markets also moved up.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 34.91 points at 23,736.98.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 178.05 points at 41,800.13. The S&P 500 index was up 28.38 points at 5,661.47, while the Nasdaq composite was up 133.17 points at 17,725.30.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.56 cents US compared with 73.57 cents US on Monday.
The November crude oil contract was up 68 cents at US$69.70 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up three cents at US$2.40 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$7.80 at US$2,601.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$4.28 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Canada’s inflation rate fell to two per cent last month, finally hitting the Bank of Canada’s target after a tumultuous battle with skyrocketing price growth.
The annual inflation rate fell from 2.5 per cent in July to reach the lowest level since February 2021.
Statistics Canada’s consumer price index report on Tuesday attributed the slowdown in part to lower gasoline prices.
Clothing and footwear prices also decreased on a month-over-month basis, marking the first decline in the month of August since 1971 as retailers offered larger discounts to entice shoppers amid slowing demand.
The Bank of Canada’s preferred core measures of inflation, which strip out volatility in prices, also edged down in August.
The marked slowdown in price growth last month was steeper than the 2.1 per cent annual increase forecasters were expecting ahead of Tuesday’s release and will likely spark speculation of a larger interest rate cut next month from the Bank of Canada.
“Inflation remains unthreatening and the Bank of Canada should now focus on trying to stimulate the economy and halting the upward climb in the unemployment rate,” wrote CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham.
Benjamin Reitzes, managing director of Canadian rates and macro strategist at BMO, said Tuesday’s figures “tilt the scales” slightly in favour of more aggressive cuts, though he noted the Bank of Canada will have one more inflation reading before its October rate announcement.
“If we get another big downside surprise, calls for a 50 basis-point cut will only grow louder,” wrote Reitzes in a client note.
The central bank began rapidly hiking interest rates in March 2022 in response to runaway inflation, which peaked at a whopping 8.1 per cent that summer.
The central bank increased its key lending rate to five per cent and held it at that level until June 2024, when it delivered its first rate cut in four years.
A combination of recovered global supply chains and high interest rates have helped cool price growth in Canada and around the world.
Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem recently signalled that the central bank is ready to increase the size of its interest rate cuts, if inflation or the economy slow by more than expected.
Its key lending rate currently stands at 4.25 per cent.
CIBC is forecasting the central bank will cut its key rate by two percentage points between now and the middle of next year.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is also expected on Wednesday to deliver its first interest rate cut in four years.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
FREDERICTON – New Brunswick‘s finance minister says the province recorded a surplus of $500.8 million for the fiscal year that ended in March.
Ernie Steeves says the amount — more than 10 times higher than the province’s original $40.3-million budget projection for the 2023-24 fiscal year — was largely the result of a strong economy and population growth.
The report of a big surplus comes as the province prepares for an election campaign, which will officially start on Thursday and end with a vote on Oct. 21.
Steeves says growth of the surplus was fed by revenue from the Harmonized Sales Tax and federal money, especially for health-care funding.
Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs has promised to reduce the HST by two percentage points to 13 per cent if the party is elected to govern next month.
Meanwhile, the province’s net debt, according to the audited consolidated financial statements, has dropped from $12.3 billion in 2022-23 to $11.8 billion in the most recent fiscal year.
Liberal critic René Legacy says having a stronger balance sheet does not eliminate issues in health care, housing and education.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
