Not sure if this still applies but going back to the 60s and 70s it generally used to be that people in the east got paid weekly and those in the west got paid every two weeks.
We get paid weekly in my company (there are 3 of us).
I think it started when the guys were always asking for payroll advances and then I said to myself “why the heck do I need to wait 2 weeks to pay everyone?” and I just started cutting checks weekly.
It doesn’t particularly make any difference to me, as my finances allow me to only crack open the bank account once every month. But one of the guys still asks for payroll advances just to make his bills.
I get paid monthly now. And while I have enough money, the idea that I no longer get a mid-month paycheck “just in case” makes me a bit (irrationally) nervous.
I was a little anxious to get my first paycheck from my first full-time job out of college that was in my field (not a McJob), as my parents weren’t exactly giving me boatloads of money and I wanted to get money that was really and truly my own. Nowadays, I have enough of a cash buffer that I could probably be paid every two months without extreme hardship. I get paid twice a month nowadays.
I’m not sure if this is true elsewhere, but at least here in Virginia actual paychecks are a special case and are generally accessible immediately as the money has to be set aside before the check is written, so the bank is guaranteed their money. At least, that’s what I was told by bank when I was working for a company that didn’t offer direct deposit.
For the OP, I think poverty and debt are the two biggest things. If you need to spend virtually all of your income just to stay afloat, then getting it more often makes it easier. This would be especially true in today’s economy where some people have been unemployed for months or longer, so starting to get their building debt paid off sooner is probably helpful.
And even for those who don’t “need” it, it’s still nice to actually have your money more often and it can make budgeting easier. I think for a lot of people, it probably goes “this check for rent/mortgage, next check for everything else, repeat” but with more checks, one might have other rules that keep them from dorking up their budgets.
If it wouldn’t be a royal PITA for the workers, I’d think the union would try to push for daily pay - why should the company get to hold on to my money for any longer than necessary? Alternatively, the company can make some money on the float (and for a large company, that’s a lot of cash to hang to for even a couple of extra days), so even aside from the extra cost of 4 checks vs. 2 vs. 1 - they’d like to pay you as seldom as possible.
When I first started with AT&T (mgmt), I think I was paid weekly (long time ago, now). They transitioned us to monthy pay at some point - I know that there were a lot of paycheck to paycheck people that were absolutely freaking out - they got their last weekly check, and then there were going to be three weeks with no money coming in.
Yup. And now they’re finally working and having to pay extra transport costs, maybe get new clothes, maybe pay for childcare, so their costs are actually higher than they were before they started work. Plus, it sucks to be working and still be as poor, or poorer, than you were when unemployed, even if you know it’s temporary.
Yep I’m poor and I’d rather be paid weekly than bi-weekly. It’s the “living paycheck to paycheck” thing. For example sometimes I’m a little short on my rent but I know the next week I’ll have it and won’t have to pay the late fee. If I had to wait another week I’d be out an extra fifty bucks.
It’d be great if I could ever get ahead but it just never seems to work out that way.
That’s only about 50 cents in savings per employee - hardly worth worrying about (I hope!!!). OK, with direct deposit there is still a small cost in printing paystubs (unless those are emailed).
IMHO: for anyone earning a relatively low salary, it can be tough to have enough saved up to cover the initial switch from weekly to less often, and they’re also less likely to have enough money saved up to cover the occasional unexpected expense even if they are getting paid biweekly. When we had a nanny for the kids, we always paid her weekly.
Oh - and I’ve gotten weekly pay precisely once in my life. I was working for G.C. Murphy (like Woolworth’s - low end "bit of everything " store), and we got paid every Friday.
In cash!!
Now, they did deductions etc., so it was all legal and so on. But it was a pain to have to stand in line to deposit that cash in the bank.
Every other job has been either every 2 weeks, or twice a month. One job made noises about switching from semi-monthly to monthly for cash-flow reasons, and back then (I was fresh out of college), the first month would have been kind of tough. They wound up not doing it. Later on I had a job that went from semi-monthly to monthly and had a bit more of a cushion (and my husband was earning a paycheck also), and the switch was much easier.
It’s not much, sure, but if we didn’t do it, it’s another $100 or so per year we have to pass on to the customer. Might as well save the money.
It’s been long while since I received an actual pay check but the employees opened an account at the same branch the check was drawn on, they would cash it immediately.
I usually work as an office temp, and they almost universally pay weekly. I love it. I had a contract job where I got paid each month - it was a fantastic salary, but waiting a month for each infusion of money made budgeting much more difficult. My weekly pay works out very nicely with my husband’s bi-weekly salary - when I’m working, we always have money coming in which just makes everything easier - mortgage and car payment and X, Y, and Z all fell on the same week this month? Well, we have another cheque coming in on Friday! Yay!
This is true only if you have a checking account at that bank, and only if that account has sufficient funds to cover the total amount of the check. Even in the latter case, it’s typical to put a hold on the amount of check for several days. Persons with ample running balances are just apt not to notice, just as they’re less likely to care if that first check takes a month or so to be deposited. But persons who have been unemployed a while notice and are vexed.
ETA: This can vary with large companies. For example, my employer has an agreement with Bank of America such that BoA will cash paychecks for all our employees whehter they have an account with BoA or not, and also such that our employees get free checking with them.
Indeed. My wife is principal and teacher at a very small Lutheran grade school (they have a total of 5 teachers). Her paychecks are actual paper checks, often even made out by hand.
Do they use a feather quill pen and ink well too? That would be sooo cute. 
By a Dickensian clerk wearing those fingerless gloves, no doubt.
If the check is drawn on that bank, maybe… google “bank refuses to cash payroll check” for far too many hits. Apparently this is quite legal.
And they may charge a fee for the privilege of giving you access to the money even if they do cash it.
If it’s your own bank, they might cash it if you have enough funds in the account to cover it if it bounces.
This can, obviously, be a huge hassle for the unbanked.
With our first nanny, she did not have easy access to a bank account. I wound up setting up a checking account at a nearby bank, JUST for use in paying her. I’d write her a check for her wages, then give her a check made out to me, to deposit in that account to cover the following week’s wages. So she’d take both checks to the bank, cash the one, deposit the other, week after week.
I never worried that she’d swipe the check she was depositing for me, because hey, all that would mean would be that her next paycheck wouldn’t be honored - so she’d basically be stealing from herself :).
Anyway - this is sort of tangential to the OP, just offering more data on how much of a pain and hassle it is to be that much on the edge.
Wouldn’t it have been simpler to just pay her in cash?
Not really - then I’d have had to go to the bank and get the cash. And the cash was more than an ATM would have dispensed, so I’d have either had to drive 15 miles out of my way to go to our regular bank (nearest branch), or make multiple ATM trips on multiple days.
Much easier on me, doing it the way we did it.