Abdul Saleh was fifty-nine when he died at home in Brooklyn in 2018 after working as a cab driver for thirty years. His roommate found him hanging from an electrical cord. His shifts had lasted as long as twelve hours but financial difficulties plagued him. It was hard to stay afloat in the era of Uber, Lyft, and rideshare companies that diluted demand.

The executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), Bhairavi Desai, summed up the situation bluntly: "This is what he knew. This was his job. This is how he knew to earn a living for himself and his family overseas in Yemen. Your days are spent hearing about your family in the middle of such a devastating war and you have little means to financially support them."

The same year, Yu Mein Chow, who everyone called Kenny, jumped into the East River. He was fifty-six years old and was struggling to pay off a $700,000 debt — a mortgage on his medallion, the permit that allows drivers to operate their ...