Yonathan A. Arbel, Payday, 98 Wash. U. L. Rev. 1 (2020).

Paying wages in arrears makes workers involuntary short-term lenders to their employers

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 3–4, that the ordinary payday embeds a credit transaction inside employment. Workers transfer labor today but receive its monetary consideration only weeks later, allowing employers to use accrued wages as a line of credit. The delay is so normalized that legal and economic accounts often overlook it. This is significant because it reclassifies pay frequency from administrative timing into a distributive financial arrangement. It connects to employment contracts, trade credit, wage payment, liquidity, implicit lending, and contractual default rules.

The reframing reveals that deferred wages allocate capital and risk rather than merely schedule bookkeeping.

employment contracts
trade credit
wage payment
liquidity
implicit lending
contractual default rules

The credit analogy abstracts from negotiated compensation packages and does not show that every worker subjectively understands or objects to the arrangement.

The introduction identifies the temporal gap between completed labor and later wages as an employee-to-employer extension of credit.


Delayed wages intensify household liquidity shortages and can push workers toward extremely costly short-term credit

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 3–4, that workers must meet daily needs even though employers aggregate payment into distant paydays. For households living paycheck to paycheck, a car repair, medical need, utility bill, or ordinary groceries can require borrowing before earned wages arrive. Payday loans may bridge the timing gap but carry costs vastly above conventional credit and can develop into repeated rollovers and debt spirals. This is significant because the payday can manufacture credit demand without changing how much a worker earns. It connects to payday lending, liquidity constraints, household finance, debt spirals, financial distress, and wage timing.

The account links an employment practice to downstream consumer-credit harms that are usually analyzed separately.

payday lending
liquidity constraints
household finance
debt spirals
financial distress
wage timing

Workers borrow for many reasons, so delayed wages are one contributor to short-term credit demand rather than a complete causal explanation.

The paper combines household-finance evidence with high payday-loan costs and rollover data to show how delayed access to earnings can worsen distress.


The payday loan from employees to employers is artificial and presumptively inefficient because capital flows from liquidity-poor households to better-financed firms

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 4–5, that delayed wage payment reverses the value-creating direction associated with ordinary finance. Workers generally lack capital, lending expertise, diversification, and protection against employer default, while employers usually have superior access to credit markets. The recurring loan therefore moves money from those who need it more to those who can borrow more cheaply. This is significant because it supplies an efficiency critique independent of the fairness objection to withholding earned wages. It connects to gains from trade, comparative advantage, counterparty risk, capital markets, household borrowing costs, and law and economics.

The analysis argues that payday is not merely regressive but can destroy surplus by assigning lending to the high-cost party.

gains from trade
comparative advantage
counterparty risk
capital markets
household borrowing costs
law and economics

Some cash-constrained employers may receive more value from delayed payment, and the precise wage premium or financing benefit is not empirically established.

The introduction contrasts workers’ liquidity and risk position with employers’ access to capital and frames the direction of the loan as financially perverse.


The persistence of payday is a legal-software problem rather than a payment-hardware problem

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 4–7, that modern money and payroll systems can support rapid, inexpensive transfers, yet law still organizes wages around conventions built for manual computation and physical cash. The contrast is visible when an overseas gig worker can be paid faster than a domestic employee doing similar work. Outdated statutes and regulatory definitions, not an intrinsic technological barrier, sustain the delay. This is significant because it locates the principal reform target in legal infrastructure. It connects to technological change, legacy regulation, legal obsolescence, payroll systems, digital payments, and institutional design.

The software metaphor distinguishes current capacity from inherited rules and makes deliberate updating appear feasible.

technological change
legacy regulation
legal obsolescence
payroll systems
digital payments
institutional design

The metaphor does not eliminate real compliance, transfer, and inclusion costs, especially for unbanked workers.

The paper contrasts advanced payment technology with Eisenhower-era legal architecture and faster platform payments to overseas contractors.


A daily stream of roughly ninety-three percent of estimated wages, followed by a biweekly accounting day, can separate liquidity from compliance verification

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 5–7, that employers can release most earned compensation each day without performing a final payroll audit every day. His proposed system pays about ninety-three percent of a good-faith daily estimate, holds a limited buffer, and completes deductions, corrections, and the remaining payment on a biweekly accounting day. This is significant because it decouples the worker’s need for liquidity from the employer’s need for careful compliance review. It connects to wage advances, true-ups, safe harbors, payroll compliance, earned-wage access, and payment streams.

The hybrid design directly responds to the strongest administrative objection to daily pay while preserving most of its liquidity benefit.

wage advances
true-ups
safe harbors
payroll compliance
earned-wage access
payment streams

The ninety-three-percent figure is a proposed starting buffer that requires experimentation and may not fit every compensation system.

The introduction previews daily estimated payments, a seven-percent reserve, and a biweekly final accounting as the article’s central design.


Protective labor and tax legislation may have unintentionally reduced pay frequency by increasing the administrative burden of payroll

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 6–7, that the rise of the welfare state may have reversed an earlier movement toward weekly pay. Social Security contributions, payroll-tax withholding, unemployment taxes, and wage-and-hour compliance increased calculations at a time when employers lacked computers. The resulting burden encouraged aggregation into longer pay periods, so laws designed to protect workers indirectly increased their demand for short-term credit. This is significant because benevolent legislation can generate durable, distributionally adverse side effects. It connects to unintended consequences, FICA, FUTA, FLSA, payroll withholding, and path dependence.

The claim makes regulatory updating part of worker protection rather than an attack on the protective state.

unintended consequences
FICA
FUTA
FLSA
payroll withholding
path dependence

The historical causal account is plausible and source-based but cannot isolate the effect of each statute from technological and organizational changes.

The overview links the mid-century growth of payroll obligations to the shift from weekly toward biweekly compensation.


Payday should not be treated as a neutral or natural fact because it affects efficiency, distribution, autonomy, and resilience to financial shocks

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 7–8, that even disagreement about his precise reform should not obscure the nonneutrality of pay frequency. Delaying earned wages changes who supplies credit, which households bear liquidity pressure, and how freely workers can respond to needs and opportunities. Rising interest rates or shocks such as the COVID-19 outbreak amplify those effects. This is significant because it turns a background convention into a policy choice that requires justification. It connects to institutional baselines, distributive analysis, worker autonomy, financial resilience, interest rates, and crisis liquidity.

The proposition establishes a common evaluative baseline even for readers who reject daily-pay implementation.

institutional baselines
distributive analysis
worker autonomy
financial resilience
interest rates
crisis liquidity

The manuscript was completed during the early COVID-19 period and does not provide later causal evidence about pandemic-driven demand for frequent pay.

The author expressly identifies efficiency, distribution, autonomy, interest-rate, and crisis implications of treating the payday as a policy choice.


Employment contains both an exchange contract for labor and compensation, K1, and a distinct financing contract that defers earned wages, K2

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 8–11, that the employment relationship should be analytically divided into two transactions. K1 exchanges the worker’s time, skill, and effort for compensation; K2 is the explicit or implicit agreement to delay payment after that value has been transferred. In K2, the employee is lender, the employer is borrower, wages are principal, and payday is maturity. This is significant because the decomposition makes the financing term visible for separate valuation and regulation. It connects to contract decomposition, labor exchange, loan maturity, wage arrears, implicit terms, and transaction design.

Naming K2 prevents the temporal financing arrangement from disappearing inside the headline wage bargain.

contract decomposition
labor exchange
loan maturity
wage arrears
implicit terms
transaction design

K1 and K2 are analytic constructs rather than usually separate instruments, and actual contracts may price the components jointly.

The paper formally distinguishes the exchange of labor for money from the agreement to postpone payment and maps conventional loan roles onto the latter.


Most American private-sector employees are paid only twice a month, placing nearly all wages in arrears

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 9–10, that Bureau of Labor Statistics and private payroll data show twice-monthly payment as the dominant practice. Depending on dataset and classification, roughly fifty-six to sixty-six percent of workers were paid biweekly or semimonthly, while weekly pay covered a sizable minority and monthly pay a smaller group. Because labor is supplied continuously, these schedules ordinarily mean payment in arrears. This is significant because K2 is economy-wide rather than an exceptional fringe practice. It connects to labor statistics, biweekly pay, semimonthly pay, wage arrears, payroll norms, and empirical institutional analysis.

Prevalence data establish the aggregate scale of the implicit credit relationship.

labor statistics
biweekly pay
semimonthly pay
wage arrears
payroll norms
empirical institutional analysis

The underlying datasets use different years and categories, and they do not clearly identify every schedule more frequent than weekly.

A figure based on BLS and ADP data reports the dominance of biweekly or semimonthly payroll schedules in private employment.


Deferred wages remain credit even when the contract states no interest rate or embeds compensation in the overall wage

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 10–11, that the absence of an express finance charge does not dissolve K2. Commercial transactions can involve zero-interest financing or hide financing costs in the exchange price, yet they remain loans with principal, maturity, and default consequences. Similarly, any wage premium for delayed payment may be bundled into compensation. This is significant because formal silence about interest cannot define the financing function away. It connects to implicit interest, zero-interest financing, bundled pricing, economic substance, credit classification, and compensating differentials.

The argument keeps the analysis focused on the transfer and timing of value rather than contractual labels.

implicit interest
zero-interest financing
bundled pricing
economic substance
credit classification
compensating differentials

Whether workers actually receive a wage premium for infrequent pay remains an unresolved empirical question.

The paper analogizes payday to financing arrangements whose interest is zero or built into price and specifies the loan’s maturity structure.


K2 contradicts the basic financial logic that loans should move funds from relatively liquid, capable lenders to borrowers with more valuable uses

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 11–12, that mutually beneficial credit normally lets a borrower pursue an opportunity while compensating a lender able to supply capital. K2 reverses those comparative positions across workplaces: retail workers lend to large retailers, technicians lend to communications firms, and public employees lend to governments. This is significant because the ubiquity of an apparently value-destroying loan creates the article’s central payday puzzle. It connects to financial intermediation, mutually beneficial exchange, liquidity allocation, comparative institutional advantage, employee finance, and economic puzzles.

The paradox demands an explanation beyond ordinary gains from credit and motivates the paper’s multi-part inquiry.

financial intermediation
mutually beneficial exchange
liquidity allocation
comparative institutional advantage
employee finance
economic puzzles

The generalization allows that particular firms may be severely liquidity constrained and particular workers may prefer delayed payment.

The finance section contrasts value-creating loans with the recurrent flow of funds from households to employers across the economy.


The employer’s financing gain from delayed wages is generally modest while liquidity-poor workers face much higher borrowing and welfare costs

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 12–14, that even firms needing cash can borrow much more cheaply than many households. Using a roughly five-percent small-business rate, the annual float from paying a $50,000 employee monthly is estimated at only about $108. Workers, by contrast, may carry credit-card balances, lack emergency savings, miss utilities, or resort to credit costing from double-digit rates to roughly four hundred percent for payday loans, alongside health effects from financial stress. This is significant because aggregate surplus falls when a small firm-side benefit creates a large worker-side cost. It connects to cost-benefit analysis, credit spreads, household vulnerability, employer float, health externalities, and distributive efficiency.

The magnitude comparison supplies the economic core of the claim that K2 destroys rather than creates social value.

cost-benefit analysis
credit spreads
household vulnerability
employer float
health externalities
distributive efficiency

The numerical illustration depends on assumed rates and salary, and the manuscript does not estimate a population-wide causal welfare total.

The article compares a $108 illustrative employer benefit with evidence on household credit constraints, borrowing rates, unmet expenses, and financial stress.


Society should finance businesses through institutions that can price and monitor risk, not through employees’ unpaid wages

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 14–15, that employers do not internalize workers’ liquidity costs and may therefore overuse delayed wages even when the arrangement destroys total value. Capital markets and specialized lenders can investigate borrowers, diversify exposure, price default risk, and secure repayment; individual employees generally cannot. This is significant because it identifies an institutional substitute for K2 rather than assuming employers must lose needed finance. It connects to financial intermediation, risk pricing, monitoring, secured credit, externalities, and institutional comparative advantage.

The policy baseline becomes replacing a poorly allocated loan with better business finance, not denying firms all credit.

financial intermediation
risk pricing
monitoring
secured credit
externalities
institutional comparative advantage

Credit markets may undersupply some small or distressed firms, so substitution may be costly in particular cases.

The paper argues that employees cannot price or monitor concentrated employer risk and that specialized capital providers are the socially preferable lenders.


Payday can generate a recurring borrowing cycle rather than a one-time bridge at the start of employment

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript page 15, that the liquidity loss repeats every pay cycle. A cash-poor worker borrows while waiting for the first check, uses the check to repay principal and interest, and may then lack enough funds to reach the next payday, requiring another loan. K2 is remade as soon as it is repaid. This is significant because recurrent wage delay can help sustain debt spirals even after employment becomes regular. It connects to revolving credit, refinancing, cash-flow mismatch, payday-loan rollovers, debt traps, and temporal poverty.

The dynamic account shows why merely surviving an initial waiting period does not cure the financing harm.

revolving credit
refinancing
cash-flow mismatch
payday-loan rollovers
debt traps
temporal poverty

The worst-case spiral does not describe every worker, and the article uses a stylized example rather than longitudinal individual-level data.

A hypothetical biweekly worker repeatedly borrows, repays after payday, and borrows again when the remainder cannot cover the next interval.


A causal explanation for payday’s persistence is not necessarily a normative justification for keeping it

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 15–16, that each candidate account must answer two separate questions: why the institution exists and whether that reason warrants continuation. Historical contingency, employer power, or obsolete technology may causally explain a practice while simultaneously revealing why it should be reformed. This is significant because institutional endurance otherwise risks being mistaken for social value. It connects to positive and normative analysis, functionalism, status quo bias, causal explanation, policy justification, and institutional critique.

The two-stage test organizes the paper and prevents explanatory success from laundering a bad equilibrium into a defensible one.

positive and normative analysis
functionalism
status quo bias
causal explanation
policy justification
institutional critique

The distinction does not by itself determine what weight to assign competing values or transition costs.

The paper expressly evaluates every proposed reason first as an explanation and then as a justification.


Long pay periods emerged under historical constraints of unstable money, manual payroll, physical distribution, and piece-rate labor

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 16–18, that pay schedules became path dependent in a technological world unlike the present. Early defaults reflected contract-completion and piece-rate work; employers later faced nonstandard currency, difficult timekeeping and deductions, and the physical burden of carrying money to thousands of workers. These constraints made frequent payment expensive when wage labor expanded. This is significant because the origin conditions explain the convention without showing that it remains efficient. It connects to historical institutionalism, payment technology, payroll computation, monetary standardization, piece rates, and increasing returns.

The history reveals that apparently natural timing rules were contingent adaptations to obsolete production and payment systems.

historical institutionalism
payment technology
payroll computation
monetary standardization
piece rates
increasing returns

The surviving historical evidence is incomplete, and practices varied across occupations, countries, and periods.

The article traces pay timing from common-law and piece-rate defaults through nineteenth-century currency, calculation, and cash-distribution constraints.


Nineteenth-century worker movements successfully established weekly-pay laws despite freedom-of-contract resistance, and early experience suggested the system was practical

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 18–19, that organized workers pressed legislatures for more frequent pay as a protection against employer abuse and a means of improving autonomy. Massachusetts became a leading example; reports suggested weekly payments were workable, did not produce the feared dissipation, and added little cost even for large employers. Courts eventually accepted pay-frequency regulation as fraud and abuse prevention rather than unconstitutional price control. This is significant because frequent pay has historical roots in progressive worker protection. It connects to labor movements, police powers, liberty of contract, Lochner-era doctrine, wage-payment statutes, and regulatory experimentation.

The history reverses the assumption that biweekly pay is the protective default and daily or weekly pay a novel deregulatory idea.

labor movements
police powers
liberty of contract
Lochner-era doctrine
wage-payment statutes
regulatory experimentation

The historical reports are not modern controlled studies and may not capture all employer or worker experiences.

The paper recounts Massachusetts’s weekly-pay campaign, favorable implementation reports, subsequent state adoption, and judicial validation.


The twentieth-century retreat from weekly to biweekly pay may reflect administrative costs created by New Deal and wartime payroll obligations

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 19–20, that the weekly-pay boom receded as Social Security contributions, federal withholding, unemployment taxes, and FLSA calculations made each payroll run more burdensome. Massachusetts eventually relaxed its weekly rule amid complaints about paperwork, and labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein links the broader shift to the new administrative load. This is significant because worker-protective programs may have inadvertently entrenched slower access to wages. It connects to the New Deal, payroll taxation, regulatory interaction effects, administrative cost, policy feedback, and unintended consequences.

The account explains how protective legal layers can conflict and produce an equilibrium none was designed to create.

the New Deal
payroll taxation
regulatory interaction effects
administrative cost
policy feedback
unintended consequences

The proposed historical mechanism is not a definitive causal estimate, and contemporaneous changes in business scale and technology may also matter.

The manuscript links the timing of the shift to new FICA, withholding, unemployment, and wage-and-hour calculations and legislative relaxation of weekly pay.


Path dependence plausibly explains payday but weakly justifies it once the original technological constraints disappear

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript page 20, that sticky defaults, first-mover costs, and free riding can preserve a social equilibrium long after its origin conditions vanish. Yet coin chests, hand calculations, company scrip, and fin-de-siècle labor conflict carry little normative force in an era of payroll software and digital money. This is significant because persistence may signal transition friction rather than continuing benefit. It connects to lock-in, coordination failure, obsolete defaults, switching costs, technological transition, and legal updating.

The conclusion converts historical explanation into an affirmative reason to reconsider rather than preserve the institution.

lock-in
coordination failure
obsolete defaults
switching costs
technological transition
legal updating

Some modern transition costs remain, especially compliance review and payment access for unbanked workers.

The author accepts path dependence as a strong causal account but rejects historical payroll constraints as a present justification.


Synchronizing periodic wages and monthly bills creates two offsetting but costly credit transactions rather than genuine financial harmony

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 20–22, that a worker lends wages to an employer while simultaneously borrowing from utilities and other providers that deliver services before monthly payment. Because households are relatively risky borrowers and unsophisticated lenders, they tend to receive poor terms on the first transaction and pay high implicit terms on the second. The flows do not cancel; they add transaction and default costs while leaving the household in place. This is significant because apparent cash-flow coordination can conceal two unnecessary loans. It connects to bill smoothing, implicit utility credit, risk pooling, household cash flow, synchronization, and transaction costs.

The analysis rejects monthly billing as a justification for payday and suggests that reforming one schedule may permit reform of the other.

bill smoothing
implicit utility credit
risk pooling
household cash flow
synchronization
transaction costs

The size and incidence of implicit utility financing are uncertain, and monthly bills may provide monitoring or dispute-resolution benefits.

The paper’s Jane example shows a household borrowing for consumption while lending wages, losing on both sides because of asymmetric financing terms.


Employer Power and Lack of Sophistication

Employer bargaining power can explain some delayed wages but cannot explain their prevalence across competitive markets and higher-paid work

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 22–23, that a powerful employer may retain wages as cheap credit when workers cannot demand full compensation for the delay. But labor-market power varies, and even employees able to negotiate salary and benefits are commonly paid infrequently. Moreover, a fully compensating wage premium would cost more than the financing is worth because employee lending costs exceed employer benefits. This is significant because monopsony is a partial account, not a general justification for K2. It connects to monopsony, bargaining power, wage premiums, labor-market competition, rent extraction, and heterogeneous employment.

The argument narrows the domain of a familiar power explanation and highlights the need for additional legal and institutional causes.

monopsony
bargaining power
wage premiums
labor-market competition
rent extraction
heterogeneous employment

The size and incidence of any payday wage premium have not been empirically measured, and employer power is difficult to observe.

The section compares the power account with the ubiquity of infrequent pay among workers and firms with widely varying bargaining positions.


Even a dominant profit-maximizing employer may prefer frequent pay when its cost is lower than the wage reduction workers would accept for improved liquidity

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 23–24, that firms optimize an effective-pay package combining hourly wages, benefits, conditions, and pay timing. If workers value frequent access more than it costs the firm to provide, an employer can lower nominal wages while keeping the package attractive enough to recruit and retain labor. That trade can benefit even a powerful employer. This is significant because exploitation alone does not predict the observed failure to adopt a mutually cheaper compensation mix. It connects to compensating wage differentials, effective compensation, labor supply, retention, Coasean bargaining, and benefit design.

The effective-pay model shows why market power cannot automatically justify or even fully explain infrequent payment.

compensating wage differentials
effective compensation
labor supply
retention
Coasean bargaining
benefit design

The prediction depends on firms and workers perceiving pay-frequency value and on low implementation costs; those assumptions may fail under legal or informational frictions.

A conceptual figure illustrates mixes of wage level and pay frequency that deliver the same effective compensation at different employer costs.


Minimum-wage law may let employers reduce effective compensation by lengthening pay periods while preserving nominal statutory compliance

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 24–25, that a wage floor regulates dollars per hour but ignores when those dollars become available. An employer unable to offset a nominal wage increase directly may lower the effective package by paying less frequently, especially when liquidity is valuable to minimum-wage workers. This theoretical response complies with the letter of the wage floor while undermining its protective purpose. This is significant because pay timing may be an unmeasured margin of adjustment to minimum-wage policy. It connects to minimum-wage incidence, nonwage compensation, regulatory avoidance, effective pay, liquidity premiums, and worker welfare.

The proposition identifies a novel and potentially regressive interaction that standard minimum-wage studies may miss.

minimum-wage incidence
nonwage compensation
regulatory avoidance
effective pay
liquidity premiums
worker welfare

The paper emphasizes that this is a theoretical possibility within a contested model and calls for empirical study rather than claiming a demonstrated effect.

A numerical wage-floor example shows how longer payment delay can offset an increase in hourly pay without violating the nominal minimum.


Worker financial sophistication may partly explain payday but is implausible as a general defense of the practice

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 25–26, that workers may not classify delayed wages as credit, yet they directly experience the hardship of waiting and need no finance degree to value earlier payment. The use of long schedules for higher-paid workers further resists a simple sophistication account, and information gaps or monopoly are market failures rather than normative endorsements of the outcome. This is significant because bounded financial literacy cannot convert a costly default into informed choice. It connects to financial literacy, revealed preference, market failure, consumer sophistication, salience, and paternalism.

The analysis grants limited explanatory relevance while denying that ignorance supplies legitimacy.

financial literacy
revealed preference
market failure
consumer sophistication
salience
paternalism

The paper does not directly survey workers’ understanding of implicit payday credit or their willingness to trade wages for frequency.

The author contrasts possible conceptual ignorance with workers’ lived liquidity experience and the broad use of delayed pay across income groups.


Employers may value accrued wages as collateral against employee departure, but public policy rejects forfeiture of earned pay as a retention device

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 26–27, that delayed wages can give employers leverage when an employee quits and is judgment-proof or too costly to sue. That account may explain some arrears, yet final-pay statutes, penalties, fee shifting, Department of Labor policy, and case law strongly protect prompt payment of earned wages. The narrow faithless-servant doctrine generally concerns serious disloyalty, not ordinary resignation. This is significant because collateral value cannot justify sequestering compensation that already belongs to the worker. It connects to final-pay statutes, employee mobility, judgment proofing, wage forfeiture, faithless servants, and public policy.

The legal treatment of earned wages demonstrates a broad normative judgment against using them as employer security.

final-pay statutes
employee mobility
judgment proofing
wage forfeiture
faithless servants
public policy

Collateral may remain relevant in jobs with unusual flight risk, and enforcement of final-pay rights may be incomplete in practice.

The section contrasts a plausible employer-retention motive with statutes and cases mandating full, prompt payment after termination.


Collateral concerns justify not paying workers before they earn wages, but they do not justify delaying payment after wages are earned

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 27–28, that employer difficulty recovering money from an absconding worker explains why a reverse K2—an employer loan through prepayment—is not a general solution. Advances may attract opportunistic applicants and create collection problems. But that rationale ends when labor has already been supplied, because the wages are earned rather than prospective. This is significant because it separates a valid objection to prepayment from an invalid defense of arrears. It connects to wage advances, collateral, restitution, opportunism, earned compensation, and temporal line drawing.

The distinction preserves employer protection against unearned advances without allowing that concern to legitimate payday.

wage advances
collateral
restitution
opportunism
earned compensation
temporal line drawing

The precise moment wages are earned can be complex for commissions, bonuses, contingent compensation, and incomplete projects.

The author accepts recovery risk as a reason against universal prepayment while rejecting it as a reason to hold wages after performance.


The behavioral defense of payday treats delayed wages as paternalistic commitment devices that protect present-biased workers from overspending

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 28–29, that an influential financial-economics theory views infrequent payment as a service to employees. On this account, people have difficulty budgeting and may consume money immediately, so employers ration access by accumulating wages into larger checks. Evidence that spending and calorie consumption vary over benefit cycles gives the intuition some support. This is significant because it presents the most employee-centered justification for payday rather than an employer-cost rationale. It connects to present bias, commitment devices, consumption smoothing, mental accounting, paternalism, and behavioral finance.

Stating the theory in its strongest form makes clear what empirical and institutional propositions must hold for delayed payment to benefit workers.

present bias
commitment devices
consumption smoothing
mental accounting
paternalism
behavioral finance

The cited timing patterns do not establish that employer withholding improves total saving or welfare, and the theory assumes income-related differences in present bias.

The paper reconstructs the Parsons and Van Wesep account and notes evidence of within-cycle spending and consumption changes.


Large, infrequent paychecks may worsen overspending by creating a windfall or illusion of plenty

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 29–30, that behavioral mechanisms do not uniformly favor delayed payment. A large payday can be mentally coded as a windfall and encourage luxury or harmful consumption, while smaller frequent receipts may smooth spending and make incremental saving easier. Evidence from tax refunds, benefit disbursement, and split-payment programs is consistent with spikes after lump sums and smoother expenditure after multiple payments. This is significant because the same behavioral framework invoked to defend payday can predict the opposite policy. It connects to windfall effects, mental accounting, payment frequency, substance use, expenditure smoothing, and micro-saving.

Countervailing biases make armchair behavioral claims insufficient to justify withholding wages.

windfall effects
mental accounting
payment frequency
substance use
expenditure smoothing
micro-saving

The author does not claim the windfall mechanism always dominates present bias, and much of the evidence concerns benefits or refunds rather than wages.

The section marshals studies and historical observations associating lump-sum receipt with spending spikes and more frequent receipt with smoother consumption.


The behavioral justification is weakened by lawful wage advances and evidence that pay frequency does not change aggregate saving or spending

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 30–31, that the commitment-device theory contains a legal and empirical gap. If present-biased workers can lawfully request advances, withholding will not bind them; contrary to one economic account, state frequency laws set maximum delays rather than prohibit early payment. A cited study also finds no relationship between pay frequency and household saving, total monthly spending, or spending categories, while many households demonstrably manage liquid assets. This is significant because the predicted self-control benefit lacks the institutional closure and observed outcome needed to sustain it. It connects to wage advances, legal constraints, empirical falsification, household savings, consumption patterns, and commitment-device leakage.

The critique tests the theory against both actual law and observed behavior rather than relying only on competing intuitions.

wage advances
legal constraints
empirical falsification
household savings
consumption patterns
commitment-device leakage

The empirical literature cited was limited and may not identify effects for especially liquidity-constrained or present-biased subgroups.

The paper corrects a claim about state law, invokes the availability of advances, and cites evidence of no pay-frequency effect on saving or monthly consumption.


Employers are unsafe and conflicted savings agents because they can steal, suspend, leverage, invest, or lose workers’ unpaid wages

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 31–33, that even workers needing help budgeting should not be forced to save through their employers. Wage theft is widespread, payroll can be suspended, retained wages increase employer leverage, and employer bankruptcy leaves workers exposed without bank-style insurance. Managers are also human and may spend or risk the withheld funds, concentrating the employee’s employment and savings exposure in one firm. This is significant because the institutional identity of the commitment-device provider matters as much as the psychology of the saver. It connects to fiduciary design, ERISA, wage theft, bankruptcy risk, diversification, and conflicts of interest.

The critique redirects any legitimate demand for commitment devices toward insured financial institutions rather than employer control.

fiduciary design
ERISA
wage theft
bankruptcy risk
diversification
conflicts of interest

Not every employer is financially unstable or abusive, and bank-side savings products also have costs and behavioral limitations.

The author combines wage-theft evidence, government pay suspensions, bankruptcy exposure, leverage, and manager risk taking to reject employer-side saving.


Legislation directly imposes long pay periods throughout public employment and may establish a norm copied by private employers

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 33–34, that federal law specifies a two-workweek pay period and state and local rules commonly prescribe biweekly or semimonthly schedules. An audit of the 200 largest American cities found 189, or 94.5 percent, using one of those schedules. With roughly twenty-two million public employees, fiat is a direct explanation and may also signal a standard to private markets. This is significant because government is not merely regulating payday; it is a massive participant that models it. It connects to public employment, statutory pay periods, government-as-market-actor, social norms, policy leadership, and institutional isomorphism.

The state can alter market expectations through its own payroll practices as well as through commands to private firms.

public employment
statutory pay periods
government-as-market-actor
social norms
policy leadership
institutional isomorphism

The manuscript treats private-sector imitation as possible but weak and does not causally estimate spillovers from public practice.

Federal and state laws plus a large-city audit document near-universal twice-monthly public payroll schedules.


Averaging minimum-wage compliance across the pay period rewards longer schedules for tipped and commissioned workers

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 34–35, that FLSA averaging can make biweekly payment cheaper than weekly payment even when total tips are identical. In the article’s example, a worker earns $1,300 in tips one week and $100 the next. Averaging across two weeks exceeds the aggregate minimum, but weekly accounting would require the employer to add $190 in the low-tip week. This is significant because a worker-protection rule creates a direct employer incentive to delay access to earnings. It connects to tip credits, minimum-wage averaging, commissions, regulatory design, pay periods, and perverse incentives.

The example exposes a concrete statutory mechanism, not merely historical inertia, sustaining infrequent pay.

tip credits
minimum-wage averaging
commissions
regulatory design
pay periods
perverse incentives

Cash tips may already be received daily, and the magnitude depends on compensation patterns and the governing accounting rule.

A two-week numerical example shows that a long averaging period can eliminate a minimum-wage top-up owed under weekly accounting.


The FLSA salary-basis test may penalize daily payment by linking overtime exemption to receipt of salary weekly or less frequently

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 35–37, that the formal definition of salaried employment creates an especially deep barrier. A regulation describes salary as an amount regularly received each pay period on a weekly or less frequent basis, implying that an employer paying more frequently could jeopardize an overtime exemption. The frequency criterion bears no necessary relation to whether compensation is truly fixed. This is significant because a technical classification rule can deter daily pay across a large segment of the workforce. It connects to salary-basis doctrine, overtime exemptions, formal classification, FLSA, regulatory mismatch, and compliance risk.

The provision exemplifies legal software that encodes obsolete pay frequency into otherwise unrelated worker classifications.

salary-basis doctrine
overtime exemptions
formal classification
FLSA
regulatory mismatch
compliance risk

The issue had apparently not been litigated, and practitioners believed courts might separate payment timing from salaried status despite the text.

The paper quotes the salary-basis regulation, explains the overtime consequence, and flags uncertainty about how a court would apply it to daily pay.


Payroll cost has four stages: determining wages, verifying deductions and legal compliance, transferring funds, and enabling workers to receive them

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript page 37, that the cost objection to frequent pay must be disaggregated. Determining earned compensation and calculating or verifying withholdings are payroll-technology tasks; transmitting and accessing funds are money-technology tasks. Each responds differently to automation and creates different problems for banked and unbanked workers. This is significant because a single claim that daily payroll is expensive obscures which costs are already small and which require institutional design. It connects to process decomposition, payroll software, compliance verification, payment rails, financial inclusion, and transaction-cost engineering.

The four-stage model makes it possible to target bottlenecks rather than accept an undifferentiated administrative defense.

process decomposition
payroll software
compliance verification
payment rails
financial inclusion
transaction-cost engineering

Actual processes and vendor pricing vary substantially by employer size, industry, compensation form, and payment method.

The article expressly separates wage determination, compliance calculation, transfer, and receipt into four cost categories.


Modern software makes wage calculation inexpensive, but high sanctions make human compliance verification a real cost that does not scale to daily final payroll

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 37–39, that time tracking, fixed-salary division, deductions, and payroll calculation are now largely automatable, with quoted per-employee payroll costs often in the low single digits. The remaining friction is assurance: FLSA violations can bring civil damages, fees, criminal sanctions, and officer liability, so employers manually review outputs. Repeating final verification every day could multiply that non-scalable cost. This is significant because it identifies a legitimate obstacle that reform must design around rather than dismiss. It connects to automation, strict compliance, liquidated damages, internal controls, scalability, and error costs.

The distinction supports the later separation of estimated daily transfers from a single audited accounting day.

automation
strict compliance
liquidated damages
internal controls
scalability
error costs

The cost figures are vendor estimates and interviews rather than a representative empirical study of employer payroll systems.

The section contrasts cheap automated calculation with costly verification motivated by significant wage-and-hour penalties.


Digital transfer is affordable for banked workers, but checks and cash make frequent pay costly for millions of unbanked and underbanked households

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 39–41, that ACH transfers cover most households and cost employers roughly thirty-seven to seventy-five cents per payment, making daily transfers a real but manageable expense. The harder case is the millions without effective bank access: paper checks cost employers more, can be delayed or forged, and may cost workers roughly 1.5 to 3.3 percent to cash; cash brings security and handling risks. This is significant because payment inclusion, not raw digital capacity, is the principal money-technology barrier. It connects to ACH, unbanked households, check cashing, payment fees, financial exclusion, and cash security.

The analysis prevents a digital-pay proposal from assuming away the workers most likely to need faster access to wages.

ACH
unbanked households
check cashing
payment fees
financial exclusion
cash security

The figures reflect circa-2017–2020 technologies and prices and may change as payment rails and account access evolve.

The manuscript compares low direct-deposit costs with the prevalence and cumulative expense of checks, check cashing, and cash payment among financially excluded households.


Frequent access to earned wages improves worker well-being and autonomy even without increasing nominal income

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 41–43, that daily payment does not make workers richer but makes their existing earnings usable when needs and opportunities arise. Liquidity can reduce stress over groceries, health care, and bills, enable bulk purchases, and fund small but decisive steps such as travel, clothing, or grooming for a job interview. Historical reports of the transition to weekly pay also described improved worker welfare. This is significant because timing changes the capabilities created by a fixed amount of compensation. It connects to liquidity services, capabilities, worker autonomy, financial stress, opportunity costs, and consumption timing.

The argument distinguishes wealth from access and shows why identical nominal pay can produce different real welfare.

liquidity services
capabilities
worker autonomy
financial stress
opportunity costs
consumption timing

The manuscript does not quantify the aggregate health, opportunity, or well-being gains from a daily-pay regime.

The policy section links ready purchasing power to everyday needs, opportunity capture, reduced stress, and historical reports of better welfare under weekly pay.


Loss of employer float is a real transition cost, but workers’ wages are an inappropriate source of business credit even for small firms

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 42–43, that abolition may restrict a cheap source of liquidity for businesses, especially credit-constrained small firms. That consequence should be acknowledged but not overstated or solved by exposing employee wages to firm default. Sophisticated lenders can evaluate, monitor, diversify, and price business risk; workers whose income already depends on the firm are poorly positioned to do so. This is significant because concern for small-business finance does not determine who should bear its risk. It connects to small-business credit, bankruptcy exposure, priority, diversification, capital markets, and transition costs.

The claim squarely addresses the strongest distributive objection while defending a different institutional source of credit.

small-business credit
bankruptcy exposure
priority
diversification
capital markets
transition costs

Alternative credit may be unavailable or more expensive for some firms, so the incidence on employment, wages, or business survival needs empirical assessment.

The article recognizes loss of float but argues that worker creditors are inferior to professional credit markets, particularly when firms are distressed.


Any wage-premium loss from ending K2 is theoretically possible but empirically uncertain and may be offset by labor-supply and well-being gains

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript page 43, that employers might pay a premium for delayed wages because they gain float and avoid payment costs, so abolition could reduce nominal compensation. But the premium’s existence and magnitude are unmeasured, and a historical study of monthly-to-weekly reform found higher effective pay and welfare, partly because employees worked more when paid more often. This is significant because the incidence of reform cannot be inferred mechanically from the loan metaphor. It connects to wage incidence, compensating differentials, income effects, labor supply, historical natural experiments, and general equilibrium.

The discussion preserves an important counterargument while showing why its predicted wage loss is not established.

wage incidence
compensating differentials
income effects
labor supply
historical natural experiments
general equilibrium

The historical study is dated and methodologically limited, and the article does not estimate modern wage effects.

The author juxtaposes the theoretical wage-premium concern with a historical finding of increased effective pay and labor supply after more frequent payment.


Daily pay would not eliminate short-term credit but could materially reduce demand for the most expensive loans

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 43–45, that households borrow to smooth consumption, pursue opportunities, and absorb shocks, so faster wages cannot abolish payday or installment lending. Yet the price of these products makes even a partial reduction valuable. A study exploiting variation in a $600 tax rebate found payday borrowing fell about sixteen percent for two pay cycles after receipt, illustrating how added liquidity can change use of high-cost credit. This is significant because it supports a bounded, empirically plausible benefit rather than an overclaim that payment reform ends borrowing. It connects to liquidity shocks, payday-loan demand, tax rebates, consumption smoothing, treatment persistence, and harm reduction.

The evidence shows a meaningful but temporary credit-demand response consistent with wage liquidity as one part of the problem.

liquidity shocks
payday-loan demand
tax rebates
consumption smoothing
treatment persistence
harm reduction

A one-time tax rebate differs from recurring daily wages, and the measured reduction disappeared after two pay cycles.

The article carefully limits its claim and cites a rebate-timing study showing a sixteen-percent short-run decline in payday borrowing.


More frequent wages could enable more frequent utility payment and remove a second layer of implicit household borrowing

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 44–45, that monthly utility billing may partly reflect the rhythm of payday. Providers deliver electricity and other services continuously but receive payment later, charging all customers for financing and default risk. If households receive daily wage streams, inexpensive digital transactions could support more contemporaneous payment and lower financing costs. This is significant because changing wage timing may unlock complementary changes elsewhere in household finance. It connects to utility billing, implicit credit, network effects, payment synchronization, default pricing, and systemic reform.

The spillover claim broadens the potential gains from ending K2 beyond the employment contract itself.

utility billing
implicit credit
network effects
payment synchronization
default pricing
systemic reform

Pass-through of provider savings is uncertain, daily utility billing has not been tested here, and consumers may value aggregated statements.

The author reasons that greater wage liquidity could support daily service payment and reduce financing embedded in monthly utility bills.


Earned-wage advances reveal K2’s inefficiency because they charge workers to regain wages already earned

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 45–46, that products called wages on demand, earned-income access, or advances mostly transfer compensation for work already completed. In economic substance, the worker is not receiving an employer loan but reducing the amount lent through K2. The expanding market therefore demonstrates both a real liquidity need and the artificiality of withholding earnings until payday. This is significant because the remedial industry monetizes a gap created by the baseline payroll rule. It connects to earned-wage access, economic substance, fintech, wage assignment, intermediation, and regulatory baselines.

The reframing shows why apparently innovative credit may be a fee-bearing route around an avoidable institutional delay.

earned-wage access
economic substance
fintech
wage assignment
intermediation
regulatory baselines

Some products may fund amounts not yet fully verified or earned and can provide useful emergency flexibility during a transition.

The section defines advance products, observes that most concern already-earned wages, and treats market growth as evidence of K2’s burden.


Earned-wage advances are an incomplete and potentially abusive substitute because they add fees, complex regulation, and lender-like risks to an avoidable delay

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 45–48, that advances require capital, administration, and repayment controls, so providers seek fees, commissions, or nominally voluntary tips. Reported effective rates can approach other high-cost credit, contracts may contain arbitration and unilateral terms, and classification implicates TILA, ECOA, FCRA, FDCPA, CFPA, UCC Article 9, licensing, assignment, and usury rules. History also warns that employer advances can recreate company-store dependence. This is significant because regulating a new workaround is more complex than removing the legal and technological cause of the gap. It connects to fringe finance, consumer-credit regulation, arbitration, company stores, regulatory arbitrage, and abusive lending.

The critique treats advances as a useful interim bridge and source of technology, but not as the preferred structural solution.

fringe finance
consumer-credit regulation
arbitration
company stores
regulatory arbitrage
abusive lending

Products and regulation vary; some advances may be cheaper than available alternatives and valuable until broader payroll reform is feasible.

The paper surveys advance-provider charges, contract terms, historical abuse, and a multi-statute regulatory landscape before endorsing only an interim role.


The core reform requires daily payment of at least ninety-three percent of a good-faith wage estimate and a full biweekly true-up

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 48–49, that employers should transfer most accrued compensation at the end of each day and reserve final calculation for an accounting day every two weeks. The accounting reconciles taxes, deductions, commissions, bonuses, corrections, and any unpaid seven-percent balance. Good-faith daily estimates receive protection from ordinary compliance liability, while failure to pay in full at accounting remains actionable. This is significant because the proposal preserves rapid liquidity without pretending that all payroll amounts can be finalized daily. It connects to estimated payments, accounting true-ups, compliance safe harbors, daily wages, payroll reconciliation, and regulatory design.

The architecture targets the two binding constraints—verification scale and worker liquidity—with separate temporal mechanisms.

estimated payments
accounting true-ups
compliance safe harbors
daily wages
payroll reconciliation
regulatory design

The regime requires specification of good faith, permissible variance, covered compensation, enforcement, and sector-specific exceptions.

The proposal specifies a ninety-three-percent daily estimate, a seven-percent reserve, biweekly final accounting, and liability tied to good-faith estimation and complete true-up.


The seven-percent reserve balances employee liquidity against estimation errors and employer difficulty recovering overpayments

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript page 49, that full daily payment would demand precision about taxes, deductions, levies, variable hours, and contingent amounts that payroll cannot always provide. A limited reserve gives the employer room to correct overpayment without pursuing a mobile or judgment-proof employee, while releasing the great majority of wages immediately. If no correction is needed, the accumulated reserve produces roughly an extra day’s pay at true-up. This is significant because the buffer internalizes error costs on both sides rather than assigning all risk to one party. It connects to estimation risk, setoff, overpayment recovery, judgment proofing, prudential margins, and mechanism design.

The percentage is justified as an administrable compromise between complete immediacy and accurate final accounting.

estimation risk
setoff
overpayment recovery
judgment proofing
prudential margins
mechanism design

The author treats seven percent as a moderate experimental starting point; fixed-salary work may need less and volatile compensation may need a different margin.

The proposal explains the reserve through deduction uncertainty, asymmetric recovery costs, correction needs, and the value of releasing most wages daily.


A consolidated accounting-day pay stub can preserve wage-theft monitoring while keeping compliance review at its current biweekly scale

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript page 49, that daily fluctuations could make underpayment harder to detect if each deposit stood alone. The accounting day should therefore produce a comprehensive pay stub reconciling all daily transfers with hours, deductions, and final entitlement, allowing comparison much as workers do today. Because only that reconciliation receives full compliance review, employers need not multiply expensive safeguards by every daily transfer. This is significant because transparency and administrative economy can coexist in the same two-tier system. It connects to wage theft, pay stubs, audit trails, reconciliation, internal controls, and compliance frequency.

The design addresses both employee monitoring and employer verification without giving up daily liquidity.

wage theft
pay stubs
audit trails
reconciliation
internal controls
compliance frequency

Effective monitoring may require bank-interface support and clear presentation, and systematic biased estimates still require separate enforcement.

The article assigns consolidated disclosure and full legal reconciliation to accounting day while treating daily estimates as lower-cost provisional transfers.


An employee option to retain biweekly pay may become a behavioral trap, so financial institutions are preferable savings agents and reform should transition gradually

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript page 50, that choice between daily and biweekly pay superficially respects autonomy but may expose unwary workers to employer counterparty risk. People who want budgeting help can direct money to insured bank-side commitment devices, while those who want investment returns can use competitive capital markets. At the same time, systemic wage reform should announce a future target, experiment, and perhaps pass through weekly pay before daily implementation. This is significant because both choice architecture and transition design affect whether reform protects the intended beneficiaries. It connects to opt-in defaults, behavioral traps, bank-side saving, counterparty risk, phased implementation, and regulatory experimentation.

The proposal combines skepticism about employer-held savings with prudence about immediate economy-wide change.

opt-in defaults
behavioral traps
bank-side saving
counterparty risk
phased implementation
regulatory experimentation

Some workers may knowingly prefer lump sums, and a constrained option may be warranted while transfer costs remain high.

The author weighs an optional biweekly schedule, rejects employer saving as risky, and calls for a target date and experimental transition rather than abrupt implementation.


Employers should disclose payday as credit and identify its implicit annual percentage rate and interest payment

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 51–52, that the Truth in Lending Act’s logic can be reversed when workers are creditors. A standardized disclosure analogous to the Schumer Box would state the APR and dollar compensation, if any, that a worker receives for waiting. Making the wage premium visible would improve comparison across employers and expose whether a nominal minimum wage includes payment for employer borrowing. This is significant because transparency can create demand-side pressure and reveal a blind spot in wage-floor regulation. It connects to TILA, Schumer Box disclosures, APR, implicit interest, comparison shopping, and minimum-wage baselines.

The proposal translates an invisible employment term into the familiar vocabulary used when consumers themselves borrow.

TILA
Schumer Box disclosures
APR
implicit interest
comparison shopping
minimum-wage baselines

Disclosure generally has behavioral limits, calculating an implicit premium may be difficult, and information alone may not overcome labor-market power.

The manuscript supplies an illustrative box listing a five-percent APR, four dollars of biweekly interest, and the wage net of that amount.


Government can lead pay-frequency reform by replacing its statutorily mandated biweekly schedule with daily estimated payments

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 52–53, that the federal government’s own two-workweek mandate can be amended to require daily payment of the estimated share plus biweekly accounting. Because the change alters timing rather than substantive entitlement, it need not reduce employee rights. Public leadership could directly benefit government workers and change the market norm that private employers observe. This is significant because the government has leverage as an employer even before comprehensive private-sector mandates. It connects to government procurement power, public employment, demonstration effects, statutory amendment, norm cascades, and policy sequencing.

The proposal uses the public payroll as both a reform target and a proof of operational feasibility.

government procurement power
public employment
demonstration effects
statutory amendment
norm cascades
policy sequencing

Federal and diverse state-law amendment still requires political will, and private spillover is plausible rather than demonstrated.

The author proposes amending Title 5’s biweekly rule and predicts potential downstream effects from government adoption.


Employment law should divorce the accounting period used for minimum-wage and overtime compliance from the frequency of wage transfer

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 53–54, that employers can retain a regulated weekly or biweekly window for averaging and final compliance while transferring estimated earnings every day. Minimum-wage shortfalls would be corrected on accounting day, and salaried status should no longer depend on receiving pay weekly or less often. Isolated good-faith daily errors would not trigger liability, but systematic employer-favoring estimates and incomplete true-ups would. This is significant because a small conceptual separation removes the statutes’ incentive against frequent pay without changing substantive wage or overtime rights. It connects to accounting periods, minimum wage, overtime, salary basis, good-faith errors, and decoupling.

The reform preserves existing entitlement levels while changing only the temporal delivery of compensation.

accounting periods
minimum wage
overtime
salary basis
good-faith errors
decoupling

Designing the good-faith safe harbor and detecting systematic bias would require implementing rules and enforcement capacity.

The policy section proposes separate accounting and payment periods, final shortfall correction, salary-basis revision, and liability for systematic rather than random estimation errors.


Payroll cards can extend rapid digital payment to unbanked workers, but fees, insurance, disclosure, consent, and fragmented regulation require safeguards

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 54–56, that payroll cards offer immediate, low-cost access without requiring a bank account, minimum balance, conventional creditworthiness, or immigration status. Growing usage and low reported deposit costs make them a plausible rail for daily wages. Yet ATM, point-of-sale, overdraft, and inquiry fees can burden low-income workers; insurance and disclosure matter; federal Regulation E and state rules are incomplete and fragmented; and mandatory cards have prompted litigation. This is significant because technological inclusion must not recreate the extraction daily pay is meant to reduce. It connects to prepaid accounts, Regulation E, payroll cards, financial inclusion, consumer fees, and federalism.

The balanced assessment treats cards as enabling infrastructure whose welfare effect depends on regulation and fee design.

prepaid accounts
Regulation E
payroll cards
financial inclusion
consumer fees
federalism

The regulatory and market data reflect the manuscript’s 2020 snapshot, and the paper does not settle an optimal subsidy, fee, or insurance regime.

The article reviews adoption, access advantages, deposit costs, fee concerns, federal protections, state fragmentation, and cases challenging mandatory payroll cards.


Daily pay can initially be limited to workers accepting bank or payroll-card transfer, allowing reform without worsening the position of workers who prefer cash or checks

Professor Yonathan A. Arbel claims, in “Payday” on manuscript pages 56–57, that employee-choice rules create a practical problem if employers must process daily cash or paper checks, but the solution is to make daily streams available to those using efficient electronic rails while leaving existing intervals for others. The paper closes by urging legal software to catch up with ubiquitous instant-transfer hardware: workers should be paid at least as promptly as remote vendors. This is significant because an incremental option can produce gains without making any worker’s existing payment method worse. It connects to Pareto improvement, electronic consent, payroll-card choice, incremental reform, technological neutrality, and legal modernization.

The conclusion joins a feasible adoption path to the article’s broader demand that delayed wages cease to be treated as inevitable.

Pareto improvement
electronic consent
payroll-card choice
incremental reform
technological neutrality
legal modernization

An electronically conditioned option may initially exclude workers with the greatest financial vulnerability and requires strong protections against coercive or costly card products.

The final pages propose limiting daily payment to electronic recipients during adoption and restate the software-versus-hardware case for reform.