[esilver]

You may have a point; workers could start living instant deposit to instant deposit instead of paycheck to paycheck. But I don’t think this is as likely.

I’m inclined to think workers who would have turned to payday lenders in the past to pay for groceries or a cell service bill might instead wait until after their next work day to initiate an instant deposit. It’s easier to do so in an app than it is to visit a payday lender, after all.

[grawprog]

I've worked with many day labourers who get paid daily, their money is gone before they get home. I also worked a job where I got paid weekly instead of bi-weekly or monthly, it was almost impossible to save money. I don't know why, but I find it much easier managing money being paid every two weeks than in durations shorter than that.

[philwelch]

In those situations, I've had my paychecks deposit into my savings account and "pay myself" out of that savings account at the first of the month. I would recommend this algorithm in general, actually--give yourself a zero-based budget, stop around the point where it's measurably below your monthly take-home income, and then pay yourself that amount every month out of savings while backfilling your savings from your income. If you have an emergency, take it out of your savings. If your savings get big enough, dump some of it into your IRA or get yourself something nice.

I think part of it might be down to numeric intuition. If you get paid $250 a week or $1000 a month, that's the same amount of money, but $1000 is a big enough number that you think in terms of, "ok, $300 for rent, $200 for groceries..." whereas $250 per week makes you think, "hey, I can blow all of this at the bar because there's another $250 next Friday and I'm sure I can scrape up the extra $50 for rent by then". $50 per day makes it a lot easier to blow the money because you're only ever blowing $50 at a time.

And I don't want to make it seem like this is because poor people are stupid. I'm stupid. There are days when I reason, "hey, I can totally eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's today, it's just one pint, I can make up the calorie surplus some other day", but it just adds up in the long run and now I'm fat. And this is exactly the same intuitive gap that would lead someone to blow daily or weekly paychecks far more recklessly than they would blow a monthly paycheck. (Relatedly, I hear that meal planning is a good strategy for losing weight!)

[Griffinsauce]

> And I don't want to make it seem like this is because poor people are stupid.

Well, financial pressure reduces your IQ.[0] Poor people aren't "stupid people" but they can more easily make stupid descicions (and of course have no way to recover, creating a downwards spiral)

[0] https://www.princeton.edu/news/2013/08/29/poor-concentration...

[esilver]

Interesting. This comment, along with the one above, made me wonder whether a detailed analysis of this behavior has been undertaken. Pew's Payday Lending in America [0] series of reports is helpful and there are many, many analyses of the impacts of credit cards on spending. I could find nothing on instant deposit payment tools, however.

[0] https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/...