In my country, working as an Uber driver gets you a good salary. I think it's around 1000€ (minimum wage being less than 500€). Is it different in USA? Do they get less than minimum wage for 8 hours?
The federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr. But certain cities are much higher, for example New York City is $15.00. In San Francisco, it’s $15.59.
Also worth mentioning that most of these averages are not taken from drivers working full-time (40 hours per week). So while they may be able to make near minimum wage on an hourly basis, they may not be able to achieve that hourly rate for a full 40 hours per week due to fluctuating demand for rides.
Companies are not required to offer health insurance to part-time employees. Employers with more than 50 employees are required to offer health insurance to full time employees.
(IANAL)
Once the ride starts with a paying client in the car, the hourly earnings are easily above minimum wage.
But what about the time spent logged into the app waiting for a ride? If you take a standpoint that's friendly to Uber, that is not billable time - the driver could potentially be working in other capacity (including doing gigs for direct and indirect competitors, like Lyft, Postmates, TaskRabbit, etc.) If you take a standpoint that's employee-friendly, this is similar to a store register clerk being by the register with no customers in the store - they're still present to perform their duties when necessary and therefore must be compensated.
How do you factor in the car related expenses? And what about depreciation and other expenses beyond the direct out of pocket costs?
It is certainly possible to spend more than 8 hours trying to get rides, and end up with less than 8 hours worth of minimum wage pay after subtracting vehicle costs.