The first time I ran into DD was in 1976 when I spent a month with pay at a Danish university. They had no way of paying except DD, so I had to open an account there which I closed after the month. At McGill they used to pay monthly which was convenient since that’s how bills (utilities, rent/mortgage, etc.) came in. Then the province passed a law making that illegal and we went to twice a month, 15th and last (28, 29, 30, or 31). They changed to DD some time in the 80s IIRC. They will still issue cheques for visitors if necessary. They used to reimburse by cheque for expenses or for the supplementary medical costs (they act as self-insurer) but this changed to DD some years ago. And about five years ago, they changed to paying every two weeks which is a real PITA since that isn’t how bills arrive and I never know when a pay is due (today or next Friday?) I still did get a royalty cheque from a publisher early in the year. And I gave a talk at City University in NY a few years ago and they sent me an honorarium by check. All of $70. Didn’t cover my dinner and taxi fare back to my daughter’s.
Every job I had prior to college was paper checks. When I asked at Arby’s about DD, they told me that was a perk for shift managers and above which I thought was weird. My workstudy did direct deposit and ever since then, all my jobs have also allowed or required DD.
In the early days there was quite an admin process to set up DD. And they had to send a test transaction first to ensure it was all working before the first real paycheck. Cost time and money.
When half their rank and file workers quit or are fired within 2 paychecks, it didn’t pay to go to all that trouble. Moreso when so many of those workers didn’t have checking accounts to begin with. It was easier to just say “no DD for peons.”
We get paid on the 15th and last day of the month, with a requirement that the money must be available in your account on the payday. To make allowances for slow systems in some banks we get paid a day early. If payday falls on a weekend or public holiday then it will paid early, never late.
Each pay is 1/24 of our annual salary, so it doesn’t vary for shorter or longer months. The EOM pay has additional allowances owing from the previous month so is almost always a bigger pay.
If you budget properly it shouldn’t really matter when or how often you get paid. This is assuming that you have the capacity to save something, anything really. Once you’ve got a whole paycheque worth saved and if you use some form of envelope budgeting then the money takes care of itself and you don’t find yourself hanging on a paycheque so you can pay bills. I wish I used this system when I was younger.
As for distrusting the direct deposits, I don’t see how paper would improve anything. It would just be a cheque and payslip printed from a computer pay system. With direct deposits I have a payslip that tells me should have been deposited and I have a bank statement that tells me what has been deposited. If those two ever didn’t match then I would take it up with the company with all the evidence I need. This has never happened. What does very occasionally happen is that the company makes a mistake and doesn’t pay what it is supposed to, normally a missing allowance payment. Then it’s just a matter of showing my allowance claim form doesn’t match the allowances listed on the payslip.
I selected Direct Deposit, as that is how my pay check is delivered. But I get cut a check for reimbursement for expenses (mainly travel) each month. That is a physical relic I must bring to an ATM.
That’s all probably true, however this would have been 2006-07. I think Arby’s was lazy.
These two statements don’t reconcile.
As someone who works very closely with banks and financial operations, it always seems strange to me how people don’t trust computers to do their job. Or at least don’t trust them as much as people.
What “mistake” do you think depositing your paycheck by hand will mitigate?
-Your paper check can be lost or stolen
-The teller can enter the amounts incorrectly
-If the mistake is on corporate’s side, they still need to go into their payroll systems or talk to their payroll vendor (presumably ADP) to fix it and issue a new check.
-Your check is just as much a “paper copy of a digital transaction” as your payroll stub.
-In spite of what you think, banks and other large institutions, by law, must have adequate backups and usually are pretty good about fixing mistakes.
Last year someone hacked into my wife’s and my bank account and stole close to $20,000. For the most part, it was simply a matter of making a call and the money was back in 5-10 business days.
Without the computer, you really are just hoping that some idiot with a pile of paper speaks to some other idiot with another pile and hope that none of those papers got lost or filled out incorrectly.
Direct deposit into a bank account, as is typical in Japan. But I don’t like one aspect of the way Japanese businesses often do this – the employer nominates the bank that you are paid into. So you start a new job then you have to open a new bank account. I have about 6 bank accounts and only currently use 1.
Yeah, I didn’t think about this one before, but I wonder what banks or credit union he thinks don’t have adequate backups. The amount of work spent backing up and auditing transaction history at banks is pretty shocking if you’re not used to it, about the only people who I would expect not to have good backups would be a payroll department/company that isn’t organized enough to do direct deposit and instead relies on paper.
My first job in Japan was paid with an envelope of cash once a month. My ex-wife and I were living with her parents for a while and we were saving a lot of money. When we moved into our own place, I found one of the envelopes full of cash. I had neglected to deposit the money.
While I worked in Japan for a US company head office would wire me the money. Now I’m in Taiwan, it’s back to envelopes of cash.
My wife pays her minimum-wage fast food employees by paper check, but I get direct deposit.
Direct deposit, on or before the 10th of the month since I teach at a state college.
By the time I started working for the Feds in 1998, direct deposit was mandatory at my agency. So I’ve been continuously getting my pay that way for 19 years. Before then, I did direct deposit at any employer that had that option; why would I want to have to take a piece of paper by the bank every 2 weeks when my employer will get it there for me?
There were a few places that didn’t do direct deposit. Working summer construction and the like in the 1970s was always standing in a line to pick up the paycheck at the end of the day each Friday. The last one I’m absolutely sure about was when I was a grad TA at Virginia Tech in 1983. Had to go by an on-campus office in a building that I wouldn’t have normally gone to, to pick up the checks, in addition to having to drop them off at the bank. But that was 34 years ago; I’m sure the Hokies have upgraded since then.
I get paid by direct deposit weekly during the school year, assuming I’m subbing. I can’t recall the last time I got a paper check. My husband also has direct deposit every 2 weeks. It hasn’t been recent, but I know with some jobs, his first pay was a paper check and then switched to an electronic deposit.
I have 2 jobs - 1 I own and another as an employee. I get direct deposit for both. I pay myself monthly. At my job I get a direct deposit “every other Friday” but it’s always there on Thursday.
I know some people, especially smaller companies and regular seasonal professions, who still get paper checks. I don’t really know why though. My company is very small but electronic transfer is convenient with a very low cost. Maybe it has more to do with employees of some businesses not having bank accounts and payment cards too much of a hassle.
Direct deposit.
More than a decade ago I had trouble with a company that wouldn’t give me paystubs because they were paying me by direct deposit. Can you say “fly by night”? (Actually they would give me paystubs, but only after weeks of complaining about it. And then like an idiot I lost the paystubs… Now I scan and store all important paperwork.)
As a result, for two jobs thereafter I wanted to get paid by cheque. In each case I eventually switched to direct deposit. For my last several jobs it’s been direct deposit all the time, and at least one would only pay by direct deposit. That last one gives out paystubs faithfully through a secure website, so I get the best of both worlds.
Cash … on the first … or you’re homeless on the 10th …
ssi/a its mainly direct deposits on the first/3rd
I did it because I couldn’t trust anyone in my house not to steal the check and the check cashing places were expensive and my aunt who didn’t trust banks computers ect was finally talked into direct deposit when there was a wave of mail truck robberies and she almost was kicked out of her house because her check never came and it was 4 to 6 weeks to get it replaced after a ton of paper work …
How do you chip in for the pizza at work when no one has cash to pay the delivery guy/gal?
DD for me and the wife. Hers since the past year, Mine since I changed jobs 18 mos ago. Mine is all electronic with stubs view-able from work or home. She gets a paper stub. My previous job went DD optional about 10 years back and mandatory about 3 years back. After it went mandatory they set it up to view the payroll data from home. Before that was via our work system only.
Even here in the primitive USA pizza places take credit cards. I can’t imagine giving cash to the driver since the maybe 2003 or so.
For sure most of us carrying almost zero cash has harmed a bunch of folks that relied on loose change or small bills for tips. Fir example, wife & I visit an ice cream parlor from time to time. They take credit cards, but the machine isn’t set up for tips. They have a tip jar for cash by the register. I never have any cash except a couple 20s for emergency use. So the staff goes untipped. Sucks to be them.