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The New York Times (NYT) is out with a profile of food delivery power users.
There’s 34-year-old Kiely Reedy, who gets spaghetti with marinara sauce delivered to her home on a regular basis. The dish isn’t spectacular, she tells the NYT, but it provides her “instant gratification.” Reedy makes $50,000 a year and spends $200 to $300 a week on food delivery.
There’s 39-year-old Kevin Caldwell, who, along with his husband, spends around $700 a week on food delivery. Caldwell has two young sons.
The NYT spoke to middle-aged women, Gen Z Ivy League students, an Uber Eats driver who began delivering food to “pay off his debt from ordering too much food delivery.”
(One of those Ivy League students, a sophomore at Yale, told the NYT she was concerned about the environmental impact of having food delivered. On the other hand, delivery “has expanded her palate,” so, you do the cost-benefit analysis.)
Spending a quarter of your income on food delivery is a bad decision, obviously.
Boomers have been roundly mocked for suggesting, “Maybe if [generation aged 18 to 32] stopped spending so much money on [trendy food and/or beverage item], they’d be able to afford a house.”
Well: I Am Become Boomer, Wagger Of Finger. Practice some self-denial. Buy some eggs.
Reprimands out of the way, I’ll move on to some more interesting items.
Who Uses Food Delivery Apps?
Those profiled by the NYT are liberal-coded. They’re concerned about the welfare of the drivers, the welfare of the planet, their own mental health. They’re mostly female (or gay).
“Nearly three-quarters of Australians (73%) and Canadians (72%), and 78% of Americans consider food delivery as self-care,” says Doordash.
Besides satisfying my confirmation bias, DoorDash users skewing liberal would explain (in part) why liberals tend to parse immigration policy through a food lens.
“But if you deport all the illegals, who is going to make your tacos?”
(To say nothing of the premise that only illegal Mexicans can put grilled chicken in a tortilla.)
But then, the NYT “spoke to readers who are devoted to delivery.” NYT readers tend to be liberal. Regardless, I’d venture that delivery apps are more popular in dense urban areas, which tend to vote blue.
We get a sense, from the NYT, that delivery app power users span the income spectrum.
Let’s see what DoorDash has to say about their customer demographics.
In a 2024 survey, DoorDash found that 33% of their customers had an annual household income below $50,000. About half of users had an annual household income below $75,000.
But if you filter out survey participants who declined to say their income, those with annual household incomes below $75,000 make up 55% of DoorDash users. That is, 55% of polled DoorDash customers who made their incomes known had household incomes below the U.S. median household income.
Let’s review a few more revealing findings.