Besides the gig economy I heard that a lot of retail businesses like Walmart now pay employees by debit card instead of check. So instead of a check cashing place taking 3% of people's paychecks some bank is taking 1.x% in interchange, and if the bank happens to be owned by Walmart well who would notice.
if you are not living paycheck to paycheck, you can keep the minimum balance in a checking account and then arrange have your paycheck automatically deposited every payday with Direct Deposit. This is free.
Check cashing places give you cash for paper checks. They charge a fee for the service.
Just to clarify, many banks have no minimum balance and charge no fee to cash any check. However some may have a harder time opening accounts than others.
I'd like to think that when we build a society and designate people to run governing functions, this would be one of the jobs we would like them to carry. At least, that's how it works here. Make sure that people are enabled to be members of society.
Back in 2005 or so, I recall my American colleagues also saying they were paid every 2 weeks, instead of monthly. That seemed pretty strange to me, for salaried positions.
It varies by employer, to this day. ADP (biggest HR company in the world, likely) probably still pays its employees every two weeks, but I no longer work there. My current company is on the twice-a-month schedule. I've been paid monthly in past jobs. And my wife is currently getting paid once a quarter!
Only if you want cash immediately. In this case, the fee is basically insurance against the check bouncing. It's free if you instead deposit the check and wait a day or two for it to clear before withdrawing the cash, since in that case they can just take the money back out of your account and not suffer any loss if you gave them a fraudulent check.
