S1 Ep9: How Uber and Lift are destroying an immigrant driven industry

S1 Ep9: How Uber and Lift are destroying an immigrant driven industry

This is the Ray Hanania Podcasta weekly overview of all my opinion columns, my radio interviews, and my reports on Middle East topics and on Mainstream American politics. 

This episode of Ray Hanania on Politics looks at impact that Uber and Lyft are having on the Taxi Cab industry. The Taxi Cab industry is an immigrant driven industry and for the life of me, I don’t understand why the liberals who claim to care about immigrants are not standing up to defend the rights of the taxi can drivers who are being decimated and pushed out of business into homelessness by Uber and Lyft.

Taxi cabs are a heavily regulated industry. It costs a major investment to drive a cab or start your own company. The medallion was a huge investment at one time and was like a stock rising in value from $30,000 to $700,000 or more in recent years. But the rise of Uber and Lyft have pulled the rug out from the Taxi cab industry and medallion costs have fallen dramatically. Owners have lost fortunes invested in hard work and money over the past 30 to 40 years.

The real concern though is safety, the lack of adequate insurance. A Taxi Cab driver has thousands of dollars in insurance on their car. The Uber and Lyft drivers have cheap insurance. Who monitors them?

We need to do something. Maybe require Uber and Lyft drivers to purchase a medallion the same way we forced taxi cab drivers to buy medallions. Put them through rigorous background checks.

My mainstream columns are published at SuburbanChicagoland.com and in seven newspapers in the Southwest region of Chicagoland including The Regional News, The Reporter, the Des Plaines Valley News, and the Southwest News-Herald.

My Middle East columns are published in the Arab News Newspaper, the Middle East Monitor online, and the Arab Daily News online.

I hope you enjoy this episode of Ray Hanania on Politics. Go to RayHananiaOnPolitics.com for the latest episodes, or check us out on iTunes and my personal website www.Hanania.com

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