Hacker News Reader

Comment by wmf | Hacker News Reader

Besides the gig economy I heard that a lot of retail businesses like Walmart now pay employees by debit card instead of check. So instead of a check cashing place taking 3% of people's paychecks some bank is taking 1.x% in interchange, and if the bank happens to be owned by Walmart well who would notice.

View on HN

> a check cashing place taking 3% of people's paychecks

You have to pay to deposit your pay in the US?

If it is a physical check (cheque), then often, yes.

Often? Aren't check cashing places just for people who have a specific reason to not have a bank account.

yes this is for check to cash at a store or something. the bank does not have a fee

Damn

yes, if you don't have a bank account.

if you are not living paycheck to paycheck, you can keep the minimum balance in a checking account and then arrange have your paycheck automatically deposited every payday with Direct Deposit. This is free.

Check cashing places give you cash for paper checks. They charge a fee for the service.

Just to clarify, many banks have no minimum balance and charge no fee to cash any check. However some may have a harder time opening accounts than others.

Wouldn't that be a good item for a government at some level to look in to? Life without a working bank account would seem unreasonably hard to me.

The US government looks at this occasionally but banking lobbyists keep convincing them not to do much. https://www.fastcompany.com/90683033/the-post-office-is-fina...

If you cannot manage to get a bank account, then you have problems that the government is not going to be able to fix.

Britain doesn't agree, so there are rules requiring the banks to offer basic accounts to those who would otherwise be ineligible.

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/everyday-money/banking/bas...

I'd like to think that when we build a society and designate people to run governing functions, this would be one of the jobs we would like them to carry. At least, that's how it works here. Make sure that people are enabled to be members of society.

Not if you have a bank account.

Only if you want cash immediately. In this case, the fee is basically insurance against the check bouncing. It's free if you instead deposit the check and wait a day or two for it to clear before withdrawing the cash, since in that case they can just take the money back out of your account and not suffer any loss if you gave them a fraudulent check.

The more shocking tidbit is that lots of Americans still get a literal paper paycheck.

Back in 2005 or so, I recall my American colleagues also saying they were paid every 2 weeks, instead of monthly. That seemed pretty strange to me, for salaried positions.

It varies by employer, to this day. ADP (biggest HR company in the world, likely) probably still pays its employees every two weeks, but I no longer work there. My current company is on the twice-a-month schedule. I've been paid monthly in past jobs. And my wife is currently getting paid once a quarter!

Paid every 2 weeks is still the norm in the US. It’s nice, I wish I get paid every 2 weeks in my country.

Isn’t that still better for the employee? I don’t care if Walmart is getting a little taste if they’re genuinely making it better for the employee.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com