Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing services have become a ubiquitous presence in the five boroughs over the past several years, but their popularity has raised questions about whether drivers can actually make a living working for them. The City Council recently voted to halt the issuing of new licenses for these services, and to set a minimum wage for drivers, based on the new study “An Earnings Standard for New York City’s App-based Drivers: Economic Analysis and Policy Assessment,” which looked at pay rates and working conditions for drivers working in the ride-sharing economy. On Friday’s show, one of the co-authors of the study, Dr. James A. Parrott, joins Leonard in the studio for a discussion of this complicated and controversial issue.