Louisiana is the 11th state to put regulations in place for earned wage access, which allows a worker to access wages earned prior to their payday. Franklin Representative Vinney St. Blanc authored the Louisiana Earned Wage Access Services Act.
“If you’re healthcare and you’re a nurse and you get paid maybe every two weeks and stuff, and your kid breaks his arm, I have something. You can go right to EWA. It’s like an ATM,” St. Blanc explained.
St. Blanc says about 80,000 workers in Louisiana have access to EWA services. It allows a worker to access the money for the hours they work and do not have to wait until payday. He says it’s a great feature for those who encounter an emergency and need money, and there’s only a small fee.
“So we put in guardrails to the program that wasn’t in there. We did something for the working people,” St. Blanc said.
EWA has been around for the last decade, but St. Blanc’s legislation puts in place guarantees that Louisiana workers have protections in place to access their earned wages. St. Blanc says if your employer doesn’t offer this service, there are third party providers who do.
“You can google EWA, get you one of the providers, and you can work it out with them and see what their requirements are,” St. Blanc said.
St. Blanc says now that there are guardrails in place for EWA, he hopes more employers will offer it and workers will take advantage of it. He says some companies use EWA as a retention tool, especially in the healthcare field, because many workers like getting a portion of their paycheck early.
