Summary
In the fall of 2024, we gained perspectives from nearly 70 users from the hospitality industry using an earned wage access (EWA) program. The intention was to better understand their current financial wellbeing, their reasons for using EWA, and the impacts of EWA on their financial behavior. Analysis from the case study is intended to provide illustrative, detailed context on EWA users in the hospitality industry and may not be generalizable to the broader work force.
Some of the key findings from the case study include:
- Paying monthly bills was the most common source of financial stress among study participants (60 percent), followed by not having enough savings in case of emergency (46 percent) and job/income security (33 percent).
- Over half (53 percent) of study participants said they always worry about their daily expenses.
- Fifty-seven percent said EWA helped them avoid borrowing money from their friends and family, and 40 percent said it helped them avoid paying late fees on bills. Thirty-two percent said EWA helped them avoid a bank overdraft.
- The majority (75 percent) of users accessed earned wages at least on a weekly basis, as 58 percent said they use it several times a week and 17 percent said they use it once a week.
- Study participants were asked how much of their earned wages they accessed on average recently. Forty-one percent said they drew $100 or more, 27 percent said $50–$99, and another 22 percent said $25–49.
- When asked whether they would be interested in accessing more of their wages earlier, 39 percent of participants said yes. Among those respondents, their interest stemmed from a desire to address cash shortfalls; the economy; and basic needs like housing, food, or child care, among other issues.
- The most common reason cited for recent access to earned wages was food, reported by 76 percent of study participants. The second most common use, reported by 47 percent, was rent/housing.
- Study participants were asked whether seeing potential earnings per shift, a feature of the EWA solution, prompted them to work more. Sixty percent of respondents confirmed that they were encouraged to take open shifts by seeing how it related to their upcoming pay, with almost a third of all respondents saying that the value of the shift always encourages pickup.