Home > Journals > WMLR > Vol. 67 (2025-2026) > Iss. 5 (2026)
William & Mary Law Review
Abstract
Earned wage access companies advance money to workers based on wages they have already earned but have not yet been paid. Then, one of three things happens to reimburse the earned wage access provider: (1) the worker’s employer sends the provider money directly, (2) the provider withdraws money from the worker’s bank account on payday, or (3) nothing. The last of these is the most interesting. If the earned wage access provider does not receive the funds from the worker’s employer or bank account, the worker just walks away. Even more remarkable, many providers do not charge any mandatory fees to use the product.
Earned wage access companies say they serve as an alternative to high-cost, short-term credit providers, such as payday lenders and pawnshops, but some consumer advocates and scholars see these transactions as payday loans in disguise. They have different packaging, critics assert, but the same substance, so federal and state lending laws should govern them. Earned wage access follows a centuries-long trend of products that look a lot like credit in some ways but not in others. Unfortunately for regulators, courts, and businesses, the academic literature on consumer credit does not give us a test or set of factors to assess the most fundamental question: Is it credit?
This Article takes up that task.