California Uber Settlement: Who’s Covered, Wages Owed, and Payout

California, along with the city attorneys of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, is in confidential mediation with Uber and Lyft over a California Uber and Lyft driver settlement that could return billions of dollars in back pay to drivers who worked between 2016 and December 2020. Mediation sessions with Uber were set for March 31, 2025, and with Lyft for April 8, 2025. If the talks fail, the state expects a trial in 2026, though the deadline may run as late as December 2027.¹

Who Would Be Covered

The case covers drivers who worked for Uber or Lyft in California between roughly 2016 and December 15, 2020. That end date matters. Proposition 22 took effect on December 15, 2020, reclassifying app-based drivers as independent contractors going forward, so the Labor Commissioner’s claims for unpaid wages stop there. Any work performed after that date generally falls outside the lawsuit.²

About 250,000 California drivers are estimated to have worked for the companies during that window. Roughly 5,000 of them filed individual wage claims with the California Labor Commissioner in 2020 through the group Rideshare Drivers United, but the state’s consolidated action reaches beyond those individual claimants.³

What the State Says Drivers Are Owed

The California Labor Commissioner’s office has called the companies’ classification of drivers as independent contractors “willful misclassification,” and alleges that as a result drivers were denied the protections California employees receive by law.⁴ The claims include:

Minimum wage shortfalls, particularly once unpaid waiting time between trips is counted.
Reimbursement for business expenses, including mileage, gas, maintenance, and insurance, which drivers paid out of pocket.
Overtime pay and paid meal and rest breaks.
Paid sick leave, which drivers did not receive during the period at issue.

The lawsuits also seek liquidated damages and civil penalties on top of the unpaid wages.⁴

How Much Money Is On the Table

Rideshare Drivers United calculates that the roughly 5,000 drivers who filed individual claims are owed at least $1.3 billion in wages, expenses, and damages.⁵ If the case proceeds to trial and reaches the full 250,000-driver pool, the group’s estimates put total exposure in the tens of billions.³

Comparable settlements in other states give some sense of the range. New York Attorney General Letitia James secured $328 million from the two companies in November 2023, split as $290 million from Uber and $38 million from Lyft, covering more than 100,000 drivers. The New York deal delivered 100% of the funds as back pay and set an earnings floor of $26 per hour for drivers outside New York City, plus paid sick leave and a right to appeal deactivations.⁶

Massachusetts followed in June 2024 with a $175 million settlement that included a guaranteed $32.50 per hour during active driving time, paid sick leave, a stipend for the state family and medical leave program, and up to $1 million in occupational accident insurance per driver. Drivers there remained independent contractors.⁷ California’s case covers more drivers over a longer period than either state’s.

Where Talks Stand and What Drivers Want

All the plaintiffs are at the table: the state Justice Department, the Labor Commissioner, the city attorneys for San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, and private plaintiffs suing under the Private Attorneys General Act. Terms are confidential and neither company has publicly commented on the numbers being discussed.⁵

Nicole Moore, president of Rideshare Drivers United, has said drivers want more than back pay. The group is pressing for forward-looking terms: a minimum rate of $1.75 per mile and $0.60 per minute, and a “just cause” standard requiring the companies to give a legitimate, stated reason before deactivating a driver.³ “We’re asking the state to stand strong, the cities to have a backbone, and not let these companies off the hook,” Moore told reporters.⁸

Uber has signaled it wants to resolve the matter. Spokesperson Zahid Arab said the company looks forward to “putting these years-old matters behind us” and pointed to more than $1 billion the company says it has invested in driver benefits since January 2021.⁵

Why This Case Took So Long to Get Here

Uber and Lyft spent years arguing that many claims belonged in individual arbitration rather than in state court. Lower courts and the California Court of Appeal rejected that argument, and in October 2024 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the companies’ appeal.⁹ The stay on the trial court proceedings was then lifted on July 2, 2024, and discovery began.²

Proposition 22, passed by California voters in November 2020 after more than $200 million in spending by the gig companies, reclassified app-based drivers as independent contractors and provided a narrower set of benefits: 120% of the local minimum wage during “engaged time” (when a driver is actively on a trip) and health insurance stipends for drivers working enough hours.¹⁰ On July 25, 2024, the California Supreme Court unanimously upheld the measure in Castellanos v. State of California.¹¹ That ruling is what fixes December 15, 2020, as the practical end of the lawsuit’s coverage.

What the Settlement Won’t Fix

The mediation covers pre-Prop 22 wages. It doesn’t resolve driver complaints about how the current system operates. No state agency has been clearly assigned to enforce Proposition 22’s benefit requirements: the Department of Industrial Relations has said it lacks jurisdiction because drivers are independent contractors under the measure, and the Attorney General’s office does not adjudicate individual claims. Since Prop 22 took effect, 54 driver claims tied to its provisions have been filed with the state, and at least 32 were unresolved as of late 2024.¹²

In April 2026, Rideshare Drivers United filed a separate lawsuit against Uber in San Francisco Superior Court, alleging the company fails to provide a legitimate appeals process for deactivated drivers and does not give drivers enough earnings information to verify they are receiving the 120% minimum during engaged time. Uber called the suit “baseless” and a “publicity stunt,” saying it complies with the law.¹³

Not the Same as the 2022 Uber Settlement

This state case is separate from an earlier federal class action that has already been resolved. In James v. Uber Technologies, Inc., filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Uber agreed in 2022 to pay $8.4 million to about 1,322 California drivers who had opted out of the company’s arbitration agreements and worked between February 2019 and December 2020. Payouts were based on miles driven for passenger rides and food deliveries, with $2.1 million going to attorneys’ fees and $29,000 to administration. The settlement did not reclassify drivers as employees.¹⁴ If you received notice of that case, it is a different matter from the state-led mediation now underway.

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CalMatters. Uber Proposition 22 Lawsuit
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CalMatters. Uber Lyft Could Owe California Gig Workers Billions of Dollars in California Wage Theft Case
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Office of the New York Attorney General. Attorney General James Secures $328 Million From Uber and Lyft
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