Payday Loans and How Walmart is Helping its Workers to Avoid Them

It is not often that you put together the words “Walmart” and “Good” with employee relations; however, a recent company policy appears to bring those two words together. Walmart, the largest public employer in the United States, recently announced the implementation of an app to allows its workers the ability to access a portion of their wages for hours they have already worked prior to payday. The ramifications of this change are huge because this policy will prevent many of employees from having to take “Payday Loans” and other debt traps to pay for essentials such as housing and food.

Payday Loans, and their astronomical annual percentage rates, hit Ohioans especially hard. The Pew Charitable Trusts published a 2016 Fact Sheet (available here www.pewtrusts.org) that provides that Ohio has the highest Payday Loan prices in the United States with an average annual percentage rate of 591%. Yes, that is not a typo. To discuss employment or consumer protection issues, contact Jesse Bowman at the law office of Alexander, Webb & Kinman (513-228-1100).