Today's "Let's See How We Can Fuck Over the American Worker" Thread

[Neil]

This sort of thing doesn't seem right.  More regulation would probably help, but your political system is so fucked that you'd probably nd up accidentally banning fire or something.

[garbon]

The only use case where the gripe is valid is (only shortly mentioned once) when the payroll card is forced and direct deposit is not an option.  The article doesn't give any actual statistics on how frequently that occurs, and it doesn't seem like that's a common way for an employer to handle payroll.

Don't let that stop a good freak out.

[garbon]

Even in Center of the Universe Manhattan.

I don't think Manhattan is the center of the universe, just that I don't think most offices here don't offer direct deposit to their non-temps.

[derspiess]

Now how exactly am I telling her what to do with her money?

Nice dodge, but it's not going to work.  Everybody has to have bank accounts, or they're boneheads.

Generally, that's probably true.

Uh, yeah.  Pretty much.

[Neil]

It's possible that some of them aren't boneheads.  They could be criminals.

[dps]

Yes I bet that's what accounts for it, in Manhattan offices in 2013.

Really, you know the ins-and-outs of all the payroll departments for all of Manhattan?  You know precisely which individuals are paid on a per diem or temporary schedule, which could preclude direct deposit, or those individuals that need to make multiple transactions or deposits off their net pay that day?  Or which companies are so small the boss' wife is the one printing out the checks on the hand-fed laser printer that morning? 

Direct deposit is not a uniform practice across all employers, and not all employees are full-timers.  Even in Center of the Universe Manhattan.

News to me that you have to be full time to use direct deposit, and I guess to my employer too, since I've been working PT for the past 4 years yet have direct deposit.

FWIW, when I worked for BK, the franchise I worked for didn't offer either direct deposit or a paycard--it was paper paychecks only.  Some of the employees there would have preferred a paycard, because they didn't have a bank account, and they got charged a fee by the banks to cash the paycheck (though the bank the paychecks were drawn on didn't charge a fee for cashing them, and they had a lot of locations).  So the whole paycheck/direct deposit/paycard think can cut a lot of different ways, and different people will prefer different options.  Though I agree that it would be nice if all employers actually offered all the possible options (heck, even including cash disbursement), I don't think it's the job of the government to mandate niceness.

WTF?  Letting people make their own choices and live with the repercussions is Nanny State?  A Nanny Stater would ban payroll cards because stupid people use them stupidly.

Keep in mind that, apparantly, to the modern American liberal, someone who pays their medical bills out of their own pocket instead of relying on someone else to pay for them is a freeloader.  Given that kind of "logic" it sort of follows that allowing people to make their own choices is Nanny-Stateism. 

Almost classic Orwellian double-speak.

[Neil]

What sort of people pay their own medical bills?  I suppose you could have the people who never get sick and rarely visit a doctor, who are just lucky.  Even then, they'll eventually get old.  Then you get the rich, but even then it makes more financial sense to get insurance, so the pool of people who are both rich and stupid must be fairly small.

[CountDeMoney]

Yes I bet that's what accounts for it, in Manhattan offices in 2013.

Really, you know the ins-and-outs of all the payroll departments for all of Manhattan?  You know precisely which individuals are paid on a per diem or temporary schedule, which could preclude direct deposit, or those individuals that need to make multiple transactions or deposits off their net pay that day?  Or which companies are so small the boss' wife is the one printing out the checks on the hand-fed laser printer that morning? 

Direct deposit is not a uniform practice across all employers, and not all employees are full-timers.  Even in Center of the Universe Manhattan.

News to me that you have to be full time to use direct deposit, and I guess to my employer too, since I've been working PT for the past 4 years yet have direct deposit.

Probably news to you as well that I qualified my statement with the word "could".

[dps]

News to me that you have to be full time to use direct deposit, and I guess to my employer too, since I've been working PT for the past 4 years yet have direct deposit.

Probably news to you as well that I qualified my statement with the word "could".
[/quote]

Ah, crap, I missed that.   

[CountDeMoney]

Ah, crap, I missed that.   

[merithyn]

Now how exactly am I telling her what to do with her money?

Nice dodge, but it's not going to work.  Everybody has to have bank accounts, or they're boneheads.

Generally, that's probably true.

Uh, yeah.  Pretty much.

You guys realize that most banks require a credit check before they'll let you open an account, right? So, the working poor - those most likely with the worst credit - may not be able to open an account. It's not a question of choice for them.

Also, my son was required to get one of those cards when he worked at a restaurant, despite having a bank account and requesting direct deposit. He was a busser, so he didn't get cash tips - instead the weekly tips were loaded onto the card, too. The servers loved the cards because they were generally paid in cash tips, and the card was basically worthless for them. The bussers, however (the lowest paid in the place), were charged fees lots of fun fees to get access to their accounts.

I thought it was pretty shitty, but didn't realize it was so wide-spread. I'm with Seedy on this one. Given as a choice is one thing, but requiring it - and requiring a fee to withdraw the money - is plain shitty.

[Eddie Teach]

You guys realize that most banks require a credit check before they'll let you open an account, right?

[CountDeMoney]

You guys realize that most banks require a credit check before they'll let you open an account, right?

And if you're on the TeleChek shitlist, no account, baby.  Ran into that problem in my younger days.  Had a bank turn down a checking account application, based on my relationship with a previous bank.

[derspiess]

No, Meri.  I did not realize that.  Probably because it's not true.

[ulmont]

No, Meri.  I did not realize that.  Probably because it's not true.

Cite - the Internet suggests that there is typically at least a soft credit check to open a bank account?