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DoorDash to pay $131.5 million to delivery workers, admitting it ‘screwed up’
By
Walter Wuthmann
Published Sep 22, 2026
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Walter Wuthmann/Gothamist
By
Walter Wuthmann
Published Sep 22, 2026
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DoorDash will pay delivery workers $131.5 million as part of a settlement with New York City for violations of the local wage laws – marking the largest labor enforcement action in the city’s history.
“After years of corporate greed and impunity, we are holding DoorDash to account,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a press conference at City Hall on Tuesday. “If you keep trying to rip off New Yorkers, we will be happy to make history again.”
Mamdani said $115 million of the settlement would go straight to roughly 260,000 workers who were either paid less than they were owed, or paid late.
About 4,000 workers are set to receive over $5,000, while about 27,000 would get a check for more than $1,000, Mamdani said. According to DoorDash, the median payment will be around $48.
“Simply put, we screwed up,” the company said in a statement posted to its website. “Our mistakes meant some Dashers were underpaid or paid late. While these mistakes weren’t intentional, that doesn’t make them OK.”
As part of the settlement, the city will create a specialized app where workers can directly report potential wage violations. DoorDash will also have to turn over pay data to the city every month for the next three years.
The city’s second-largest enforcement action was against Starbucks in December of last year, after the company allegedly denied thousands of workers stable schedules and cut their hours arbitrarily. Starbucks paid out about $35 million.
The DoorDash settlement stems from the city’s landmark 2021 minimum pay law, which increased food delivery workers’ minimum hourly rate to $19.56. After the measure took effect in 2023, a group of delivery workers filed complaints with the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection alleging cases where DoorDash had stiffed them or paid them late.
One of those workers was Rosendo Tacam of Queens, who said the company didn’t pay him for an entire week of work. Tacam is one of the leaders of Los Deliveristas Unidos, a group that organized during the pandemic to fight for better working conditions and pay.
“Despite everything we went through on the streets, today we know we are not alone,” Tacam said in Spanish.
He said DoorDash “may steal our tips and our pay, humiliate us, and treat us as if we were worthless, but you will never take away our dignity, our voice, or our power as united delivery workers.”
Workers’ Justice Project Executive Director Ligia Guallpa said the settlement was only made possible by workers like Rosendo, “who had the balls and the courage to stand up to DoorDash.”
DoorDash had opposed Mamdani during the mayoral election, putting $1 million into Fix The City, a super PAC supporting former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and another $1.8 million into another Cuomo-aligned super PAC called Local Economies Forward NY.
The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection’s investigation into DoorDash began under the administration of previous Mayor Eric Adams. But Guallpa said the enforcement action “really accelerated” after Mamdani took office in January.
“We are seeing that this administration is super committed to workers and working New Yorkers,” she said in an interview.
Payments to the delivery workers will go out later this fall.
“ To every delivery worker, check your email in late October,” Mamdani said.
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doordash
new york
Walter Wuthmann
Walter Wuthmann is a reporter covering public safety and the legal system.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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