The data in Table 5 indicate that Uber’s driver-partners generally receive higher earnings per hour (before vehicle expenses) than employed taxi drivers and chauffeurs. As long as drivers’ costs are less than $6.79 per hour, the net earnings of Uber driver-partners would exceed those of taxi drivers and chauffeurs, on average. Notice also that Uber’s driver-partners tend to earn more in markets where taxi drivers and chauffeurs tend to earn more. The Pearson correlation across the 19 areas with available data is 0.52. At least in the long run, the process of labor market equilibration in the presence of varying local labor market conditions should generate a positive correlation in the wages of those doing similar work in the same market. Expenses. Uber’s driver-partners are not reimbursed for their driving expenses, such as gasoline, maintenance, depreciation, or insurance, while employed driver-partners covered by the OES data may not have to cover these costs. Costs vary for each driver- partner depending on their model of car, driving style, traffic, and other factors. Note also that drivers may partially offset their costs by deducting work-related expenses from their income for tax purposes, including depreciation or leasing fees, gasoline, maintenance, insurance, mobile device and data fees, and license and registration fees. We disregard possible tax deductions in our calculation below, however, leading to a somewhat overstated estimate of driver costs. To derive estimates of Uber driver-partner costs tailored to each category of vehicle that drivers use, we use cost data from the AAAs “Your Driving Costs” reports.24 Each year the AAA produces a report containing estimates of the five-year cost to own for the top five selling vehicles in each of five categories: small, medium, and large sedan, truck, and minivan. We combine this data with estimates of average miles driven per hour while the Uber app is on derived from driver GPS data for a random sample of 2,000 driver days per city in each of the 20 BSG cities surveyed. Costs in the AAA report are broken down on a per mile basis for variable costs (e.g. gas) and a per year basis for fixed costs (e.g., insurance and taxes). Only one variable cost of interest is not explicitly provided, marginal depreciation. Instead, the AAA provides annual depreciation estimates for vehicles driven 10,000, 15,000, and 20,000 miles per year. We derive per mile depreciation estimates from these data as follows: we assume that average per mile depreciation over the first 10,000 miles is the same as it is between mile 10,000 and mile 15,000. Additionally, we assume that the average per mile 24 http://exchange.aaa.com/automobiles-travel/automobiles/driving-costs/#.Vx7mc5MrJdA 26