Why some workers think Walmart’s pay-in-advance app is a lousy deal
The Philadelphia Inquirer
When Walmart sales associate Emeraid Gems saw that her paycheck was $200 short, she started looking for solutions.
The money, she later learned, didn’t show up because of a glitch — her paid time off hadn’t gone through — but the 35-year-old Gettysburg worker couldn’t wait. She needed the money for her car payment or else it would costher $10 a day in late fees.
Then she remembered a new app she’d seen advertised on Walmart’s scheduling platform: Called Even, it lets employees get a portion of their pay for hours they already worked.
In December, Walmart launched the app to its workforce, which gets paid every two weeks. Framed as an “investment” in its employees, the program was designed as an alternative to high-interest payday loans. Walmart joined a growing group of employers offering instant pay options, including Uber, McDonald’s, and Panda Express. The new class of financial tech companies say that their services reduce missed shifts and employee turnover, which are especially high in the retail and hospitality industries and during this time of low unemployment.
But before signing up, Ms. Gems read through Even’s guidelines: To get half her paycheck early, it would cost her $6 a month. First month was free, the rules stated, and then another free month for every month she had the app. To her, it sounded like she’d have to pay the $6 even if she wasn’t going to use it to get an advance, a fee that would come right out of her next paycheck. And it wasn’t clear how to unsubscribe. Ms.Gems balked. “I don’t know why they’re going to charge us to get the money that’s already ours,” said Ms. Gems, who’s worked at the Walmart in Gettysburg for nearly eight years and earns $11.22 an hour. She’s a member of OUR Walmart, a national group that organizes Walmart employees.
Calls to Walmart and Even show Ms. Gems’ understanding of the app wasn’t entirely right. She had to pay the $6 fee only if she wanted an advance and didn’t have a free month (the free months are paid for by Walmart). And she could accumulate free months without paying the recurring fee. In order to accumulate those free months, she had only to be signed up for the free version of the app. The premium version allows employees to get the “Instapay” advance payments.
In addition, Walmart spokesperson Justin Rushing said, the app asks every month if you want to subscribe unless you set it to autorenew,so it’s not just taking $6 out of your paycheck without your consent. Even on autorenew, the app automatically unsubscribes you if you haven’t used it to get an advance fortwo months.
Ultimately, the misunderstanding stopped Ms. Gems from using the app to get the money she needed for her car payment. (Asked how she eventually got it, she said, “A littlepeep sent me money.”)
Nearly eight months after launch, 200,000 Walmart employees were using Even to either manage their finances or get paid ahead of payday. Walmart says the majority of employees who use the app use the Instapay function less than once a month. It’s a small fraction of the retail giant’s 1.5 million employees, but the engagement numbers exceeded Even’s projections, drawing the interest of other major employersand bolstering the Silicon Valley company’s bid to raise $40 million in venture capital.
Reception to the app has been “overwhelmingly positive,” Mr. Rushing said, pointing to the app’s reviews in the App Store. (From nearly 13,600 reviews, the app has a ratingof 4.9 out of 5.)
The main critique of the app came from Walmart staffers like Tucson-based Matt Fixel, who said the app sounded helpful but “I would prefer it if they gave me more hours.”
An informal survey of Northeast Walmart workers who are part of OUR Walmart showed that many hadn’t heard of the app and that those who had, like Ms. Gems, didn’t have a good sense of howto use it.
“There’sclearly a lot of misinformation and confusion about how it actually works,” said Leewana Thomas, a former OUR Walmart organizer, citing the conversation in the comments of OUR Walmart’s Facebook group where employeesdiscussed the app.