Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani’s administration announced on September 22 a $131.5 million enforcement settlement against DoorDash over what it described as systematic violations of New York City’s Delivery Worker Laws, an action that will send money to more than 260,000 delivery workers the city says the company underpaid, paid late or never paid at all.
The settlement directs more than $115 million to workers and more than $16 million in civil penalties and costs, according to the Mayor’s Office. The office called it the largest worker settlement in New York City history and the largest settlement involving food delivery workers in the United States. Details are posted at nyc.gov/doordash, and the administration’s full announcement is on the city’s site.
Workers do not need to file a claim or submit evidence to be paid, the Mayor’s Office said. The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection identified everyone owed money by analyzing DoorDash’s own records. In late October, the agency’s settlement administrator will email each worker who experienced an underpayment between April 22, 2022 and June 28, 2026, sent to the last email address the worker used with DoorDash and stating the amount owed. Workers can choose an electronic payment or a check by mail; those who do not choose will be mailed a check to their last-known address. Payments begin this fall.
Compensation is calculated at roughly 200 percent of what a worker was underpaid. A worker owed $1,000 who received nothing will get $3,000, the office said, and a worker paid $1,000 later than the law allows will get $2,000.
The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection said its citywide investigation began after dozens of workers reported that DoorDash had failed to pay them, or paid them late, for work they had already performed. Workers Justice Project helped many of those workers file complaints with the agency, which then expanded the investigation using detailed pay data. The agency found DoorDash failed to pay thousands of workers at all and failed to pay thousands more on time.
The agency also found DoorDash violated the city’s Minimum Pay Rate. Although the company raised hourly pay to meet the rate in December 2023, it excluded several categories of trip time and on-call time when calculating compensable time, according to the office. The Minimum Pay Rate, which the city began enforcing in December 2023, is adjusted annually for inflation and is currently $22.13 per hour, excluding tips.
To build the case, the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection said it obtained terabytes of data from DoorDash, including billions of rows documenting how the company treated delivery workers. Its new Research and Analytics Division analyzed the data to identify more than 152 million individual payment transactions and 110 million working hours tied to the investigation.
“When a worker earns a wage, they deserve to be paid that wage – not tomorrow, not after a lawsuit, but on time and in full,” Mamdani said. “DoorDash underpaid more than 260,000 workers, and today we are getting that money back. No corporation is above the law, and this administration will keep fighting until every worker gets the pay and protections they deserve.”
Beyond the payments, the settlement sets up a worker-driven compliance monitoring program meant to catch violations as they happen. DoorDash must submit detailed data reports to the agency every month for three years. Workers Justice Project and the Workers’ Algorithm Observatory will build software that lets workers capture what DoorDash shows them about their trips and pay and share it directly with the city, and Workers Justice Project will run outreach to workers about the tool and their rights. DoorDash is barred from preventing or penalizing workers for using it. The New York Community Trust will issue grants to both organizations across the three-year monitoring period.
The settlement also requires DoorDash to make software updates so the company cannot offer a New York City worker a delivery unless that worker’s time is being recorded as compensable on-call or trip time, and to comply with the pay rule for “batched” trips, ending what the office called the unlawful practice of paying a lower rate for certain legs of a trip. DoorDash must adopt internal controls, preserve compliance records, and have an internal compliance monitor submit an annual report and sworn statement certifying compliance.
“The size of this settlement shows the damage done to workers by wage theft. But it also shows that enforcement matters,” said Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su. “In this administration, if you steal workers’ wages, it’s not enough to just pay what you should have paid in the first place.” Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine said the workers were “showing that opaque algorithms will not have the final word when it comes to how much they are paid for the hard work they do.”
The office tied the settlement to a wider enforcement push, saying the administration has secured more than $104 million in additional tips and $725 million in increased wages for delivery workers since January.
“For too long, DoorDash treated workers as disposable-stealing their wages and deactivating them, leaving families without the income they rely on,” said Ligia Guallpa, executive director of Workers’ Justice Project. “We celebrate this victory, but the fight continues: we will keep organizing for job security, safer working conditions, higher pay and respect.”
Rosendo Tacam, a delivery worker and leader of Los Deliveristas Unidos and member of Workers’ Justice Project, said he filed a complaint after DoorDash deactivated him and did not pay him for his last week of work. “I gave DoorDash everything I had, and then they deactivated me and didn’t pay me for my last week of work. I felt angry and disrespected,” Tacam said. “Today, seeing delivery workers get justice is proof that when we organize, we can make companies respect us as the essential workers we were-and continue to be-for our city.”
Council Member Sandy Nurse, who represents Bushwick, said DoorDash “thought they could shortchange their workers and get away with it. Not on our watch.” Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez said the complex systems delivery workers navigate “doesn’t always allow these low-wage workers to seek justice for the compensation they deserve from big corporations.”
A hotline for workers with questions or who need to update their email address will open at the end of September. A second round of payments is set for early 2027 for a small group of DoorDash workers, because the company is still correcting elements of its compensable-time calculation logic that caused additional underpayments, an issue that may affect workers using DashLink. Delivery workers who believe their rights are being violated can file a complaint with the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection at nyc.gov/workers.
Featured image: Ed Reed / Mayoral Photography Office
