Yahoo Finance Cost-of-living crisis: Aussies living pay cheque to pay cheque
Aussies have been tightening the purse strings as the cost of living bites household budgets, with a growing number wanting to access their pay early.
Paytime - an earned-wage access provider - has seen a sharp increase in the number of workers wanting early access to their earned pay.
The data suggests more than half of Aussie workers who are accessing their pay early are doing so to pay for food and groceries.
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“The lead-up to Christmas always puts extra financial strain on families and individuals and we’ve noticed a big spike in people wanting to access their wages early to alleviate the stress,” Paytime CEO Steven Furman said.
“Nearly half of our users say they’re expecting to have to withdraw their wages early to be able to afford to go Christmas shopping.”
Earned-wage access allows employees to access a portion of their earned salary/wages as they need it - as opposed to waiting until payday.
“With the current cost of living impacting everyone, making workers wait a fortnight, or even a week, to be paid is causing financial stress across all pay packets,” Furman said.
The data found 92 per cent of Aussies blamed the increased cost of living for needing access to their money.
More than half (52.7 per cent) were paid fortnightly and said they were struggling to bridge the gap between bills and payday.
“Eighty-eight per cent of users say being able to access their own earned wages helps them avoid other forms of credit like payday loans, on-demand pay app solutions (who are all loans to the user), and even buy now pay later schemes,” Furman said.
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