A Lyft sign taken in January 2023 at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. | Photo: Mat Hayward / Getty Images
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Friday that rideshare company Lyft has agreed to pay $2.1 million as part of a proposed settlement that requires it to change how it advertises driver pay.
The company routinely advertised that drivers could make “specific hourly amounts” — in one instance, claiming earnings of “up to $33” per hour for driving in Atlanta — that were based not on an average, but on what the top fifth of drivers made, according to the Commission. The company also apparently included tips in those figures.
Such moves “overinflated the actual earnings achieved by most drivers by as much as 30%,” writes the FTC, which says the company now must base potential pay claims on what drivers typically make, instead. And…