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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>Flipping that burger for 30 hours a week does not give them enough money to find housing. Now they're still broke but they're also tired, smelly, and angry.

But now they still have $420 (based on CA's minimum wage of $14) more in their pocket?

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If you're sleeping in the street or in a homeless shelter, the only thing that amount of money is going to do for you (in California at least) is make you a target for thieves.

Good thing that many employers (typically the ones that employ minimum wage workers) allow you to take your paycheck on a prepaid debit card.

Which, of course, is predicated on having the appropriate documentation for opening and maintaining a bank account. In most states (although not NY), that means a federally valid ID.

I’ve also reviewed some of these accounts and payroll apps, and many are downright predatory: extraordinary fees for a no-frills debit account, tie-ins to payday loan companies, and connections to “micro investing” (read: gambling) are rampant.

Have the near usurious transaction fees typically associated with those cards been regulated away, or are they still yet another way for financial conglomerates to nickel and dime more profits from the most vulnerable, while masquerading as a better option?

I last had my pay deposited onto a prepaid card in 2009, so the laws may indeed have changed. Back then those fees were overly restrictive and quickly ate into my meagre take home (unless, ironically, I withdrew as much as I could with my single allotted fee-less cash withdrawal per pay period)

> Have the near usurious transaction fees typically associated with those cards been regulated away, or are they still yet another way for financial conglomerates to nickel and dime more profits from the most vulnerable, while masquerading as a better option?

I'm having trouble finding the source, but my recollection from a planet money podcast is that they're free to withdraw if you use their network of ATMs, but otherwise charge you a few dollars per transaction. As for whether it's better, maybe? It's certainly worse than a no-fee banking account at a local credit union (but with limited ATM access) or a big bank (but with a fee and/or minimum deposit requirements), but it's better than holding a wad of cash on your body.

>it's better than holding a wad of cash on your body.

I can't argue with that!

California requires that whatever an employer pays you with be convertible to cash without paying a fee, but it doesn't appear to require that you be able to do so incrementally. As such it appears that you could still be forced to choose between transaction fees and cashing it all in one shot.

A further problem I found was being limited by the denominations the ATM gave out. Sure 20's only works in most cases, but when I'm trying to stretch my check and have to leave $17 of my $217 in there, it hurts.

Getting to a teller window when they were open, or searching down an ATM that gave out 10's just wasn't in the cards considering my schedule at the time.

It's still something that can be stolen

it significantly cuts down on the incentive, though.

I feel like at this point people are just trying to come up with problems for the sake of it.

Debit cards have pins. You can't just steal someone's debit card and go drain all the money. Sure there are other really hard issues to solve with homelessness. But their debit card getting stolen isn't one of them.

My debit card has a contactless pad. I think there’s a transaction limit on it of a few hundred dollars, but someone could very easily tap it and drain my account if that was all I had.

But even that misses the point: not everybody has the means to wait 5-7 days for their bank to mail them a replacement card, even if no money is actually taken from the account. This is compounded when you consider that most of the companies that offer cheap banking accounts don’t have great branch service.

Good luck getting and keeping a job when you have nowhere to shower and may be forced to relocate at any time. Oh, and the cops may come and smash or steal all of your belongings.

Gym memberships can be had for $20/month or less, and provide a full bathroom facility for showering and grooming.

I'm not trying to be pedantic. I'm just pointing this out for anybody reading this who may find themself in a situation like this in the future.

good luck getting a gym membership without an address, cell phone, credit card or sizeable deposit - forget about the fact that you look & smell terrible.

I did it in Boulder , CO for a few months. I didn’t have an address but I did have a cell phone and debit (not credit) card. I did look and smell like a campfire. I’ve never heard of a deposit for a gym- those must be some fancy gymnasiums.

which gym was it? the cheapness gym I know of (Planet Fitness - $10/month) requires a bank account.

I just checked because it’s been a few years. The building is now occupied by 24 Hour Fitness, but I don’t think that was the name of it when I used it.

If gyms are cracking down on this use case then that is a shame.

I wonder if you could retro-fit a 53’ tractor trailer into shower(s) + laundry stall(s) on wheels and bring it close to the “customer”? I wonder how that could work.

When I was 21, our house of 4 was evicted because 1 didn’t pay rent and lied about it until we got notice to vacate. Luckily it was summer in Colorado so we decided to camp for a while. Unfortunately, I had just gotten a new (awesome) job and couldn’t go into the office smelling like campfires so I got a membership at the gym and showered there every morning. Never ended up exercising there though, ha.

> Gym memberships can be had for $20/month or less, and provide a full bathroom facility for showering and grooming.

The gyms near me in NYC all require a permanent address, NY state ID, and a credit card.

even ones like YMCA?

I'm not sure offhand. Looking at the local YMCA site it's $66/mo for a single location, asks for an address to sign up, and can do credit/debit as well as drafts from checking/savings account, so it appears you have to be "banked".

I suspect the strict dress code requirements at mine are secretly an anti-homeless measure.

Panhandling can earn more than minimum wage, and you have no boss or responsibilities.

see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28066652

talk to a homeless person. see the depression. imagine?

it is v sad

"net quality-of-life improvements" from the parent. You are counting Gross. IE: its not worth it.

There's a lot of quality-of-life improvements you can buy with $420. food, access to a gym, a better tent, PO box/locker to store your stuff, etc. Multiply that by 4 weeks, and you get $1680, which seems almost enough to rent a unit with roommates.

Closer to $280 once tax and social security is taken out.

At $420/week, federal FICA taxes are about $45. Federal income tax would be zero at this level. (Actually probably negative once you add back in the EITC)

That all depends on how you fill out that w2. While you might get that money back, more if you qualify for the EITC, most people are still going to have their taxes removed from their paycheck.

> depends on how you fill out that w2.

W-4 is the payroll withholding form (from employee to employer). W-2 is provided by an employer to the employee (and the IRS) at the end of the year.

Yeah, but they're still homeless, and unless you can find a place eventually you'll get fired. It may also be that you can get more than 400$/week panhandling. That's only 57$/day.

>It may also be that you can get more than 400$/week panhandling. That's only 57$/day.

Are we comparing the upper end of what you can earn via pan-handling with the lower end of what you can earn via a minimum wage job here? That might be responsible for the apparent disparity. Apparently LA has around 65k homeless people. I'm skeptical that even half of that (32.5k) can all earn an average income of $400/week panhandling.

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