That Washington Post article is garbage. It cites as the source of its numbers, the Buzzfeed article I quoted. But the only place the number "$20" appears in the Buzzfeed article is this:

"None of these advertisements mention driver expenses. The same goes for the alerts Uber sends to drivers — sometimes five times a day or more — telling them that other drivers on the road were making $20 or $30 an hour in gross fares."

Okay, so the first google result I found had an inflated number. I don't really get what point you're trying to get to. If you think I'm arguing Uber is a good/lucrative place to work, I'm not.

You do seem to be arguing that Uber drivers should have sufficient money to do a variety of things based on completely erroneous information about how much money they have.

Let's put some context on this. Disability insurance is $30/mo. And that amount is generally tax deductible for the self employed.

Yes, if you're poor it will be harder to buy health insurance, but you can avoid consumer debt at virtually any income. You can save up an emergency fund at virtually any income level. The fact that it might get more difficult to do any of these things as you get closer and closer to the lowest end of the poverty spectrum... is that really the argument we're trying to have? Because that seems like a silly thing to interject in a conversation about people who are going to be starting and running small businesses.

Disability insurance is $30/month for you, a person whose job has a near zero risk of causing a disability and whose job can still be performed even with many forms of disabilities. It is dramatically more for people with riskier jobs.

$30/mo is the national average. Yes, if you're a trapeze artist it is probably going to be higher. But usually, so will your income.