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Interesting, I didn't know payday lending was a thing in Spain. Delaying salary payments serves two purposes: first, to benefit the employer by keeping your mo
by biztos 5y ago
Interesting, I didn't know payday lending was a thing in Spain.
Delaying salary payments serves two purposes: first, to benefit the employer by keeping your money in their account longer; and second, at least culturally, to force you into a budget cycle "for your own good." People accept these things culturally but there's no reason they should have to.
When I moved to Germany from the US I was a little shocked to discover that I would be paid at the end of the month and not every two weeks. They took the cyclical paternalism one step further, and of course also forced me to give my employer an interest-free credit line. It would be fun to have the leverage to challenge that, but I did not.
What do you think the ideal payment frequency would be?
For wage labor it seems like you should get paid daily at least, but then why not hourly? Might it even be motivational to see your net pay (after deductions of course) dropping into your account every hour, and you get a notification in some app?
For a salaried position I think I'd be quite happy getting paid by the week, especially if my actual salary were set on a weekly basis so I always got the same amount.
- Grustaf 5y agoI don't know if those are the historical reasons, but I'd say the main reason now is that it simplifies book keeping. Just like even the most solvent companies don't pay their purchases right away, you pay on invoice and batch things.
- pjc50 5y agoWeekly feels about right, but as you say: what reason is there for the lower bound? We have high frequency trading, why not high frequency wages? I'm reminded of the minimum wage machine paying out one US penny every five seconds: https://www.blakefallconroy.com/minimum-wage-machine.html https://www.blakefallconroy.com/minimum-wage-machine.html (The minimum granularity is probably that of your timesheet or timeclock, and then we get into how oppressive the surveillance involved in policing that can be, bathroom breaks, screen-watching software, etc.)
- magicalhippo 5y agoI get paid middle of month, which is a nice compromise from the "work delivered" vs "paying up front" perspective. Given that I have a rather fixed income, I don't see why I'd need any higher frequency than that. It wouldn't change anything. If I had a highly variable income I could see weekly making sense, though it would be a bit of a mess in months with a lot of red days.
- benhurmarcel 5y ago> When I moved to Germany from the US I was a little shocked to discover that I would be paid at the end of the month and not every two weeks. They took the cyclical paternalism one step further This is standard everywhere in Europe by the way.