An employee benefit linked to financial stress is becoming more popular than 401(k)

• A 2025 Wage Reality Report from Resume Now reveals that 73% of workers are struggling to afford anything beyond basic expenses, essentially living paycheck to paycheck.
• Rising housing costs (55%), increased prices for everyday items (41%), and salaries that fail to keep up with inflation (34%) are the top contributors to financial stress, according to the survey.
• On-demand pay platforms enable workers to access their earned wages when they want rather than wait for the typical bi-weekly paycheck, and at some companies are proving to be more popular than retirement plans.

When Robert Ferlmann joined janitorial services firm Vonachen Group as chief financial officer in January 2022, he discovered that there was nearly 100% turnover among the company's mostly hourly workforce.

“I knew I had to do something to reduce it so I decided to switch our pay cycle from biweekly to weekly to see if it would help,” Ferlmann said. Giving employees access to their paychecks more frequently, he figured, would relieve some of the financial stress he was hearing about from workers, and possibly prevent them from looking for jobs elsewhere.

It's no secret that financial stress has reached a breaking point for many Americans. A 2025 Wage Reality Report from Resume Now reveals that 73% of workers are struggling to afford anything beyond basic expenses, essentially living paycheck to paycheck. Rising housing costs (55%), increased prices for everyday items (41%), and salaries that fail to keep up with inflation (34%) are the top contributors to financial stress, according to the survey.

For employers, this means a labor force comprised of people who are anxious, distracted, or simply not there, said Stacy Greiner, CEO of on-demand pay platform DailyPay. “When you're living paycheck to paycheck, you're making trade-offs,” she said. “Do I put gas in my car and get to work or do I buy groceries? Do I call in sick to work so I can go to my side gig and get paid today rather than wait for the next pay period?”

On-demand pay platforms, like DailyPay, enable workers to access their earned wages when they want rather than wait for the typical bi-weekly paycheck. Other companies in this space include Tapcheck, FlexWage, and CloudPay, the latter which caters to companies with mostly international workers.

'The most popular benefit we offer'

When Ferlmann first heard about DailyPay he was skeptical. “I was looking for the holes in the fine print,” he said, but when he didn't find any he agreed to be part of a pilot program.

In June 2022, Vonachen Group launched the DailyPay on-demand pay benefit to the entire company and within weeks, Ferlmann said 50% of his employees — including a handful of salaried workers — were using the app. There's no charge for employers to offer the benefit. Employees pay a $3.49 flat fee only when they need instant access to their earned wages; if they can wait 24 hours there is no fee.

“It is, without question, the most popular benefit we offer employees,” Ferlmann said, and adds that for the workers using it, turnover has decreased by about 25%.

“Partnering with employers to give their employees control over their financial wellness is more important than ever,” Greiner said. “People want to know if they have a bill or a need for their money, they can get access to it. It's not a payday loan they have to pay back with interest. It's money they've already earned.”

DailyPay works with companies such Target, Hilton Hotels, McDonald's and HCA Healthcare, to name a few — basically any employer that has a significant hourly worker labor pool (although as Ferlmann points out, salaried workers can access it as well). Greiner said DailyPay's technology coordinates with a client's human resources tech stack making it easy to integrate. Videos and other materials to explain the benefit to employees is provided by DailyPay, a fact that was important to Ferlmann.

“They do all the heavy lifting and that was critical,” he said. “The last thing I wanted to do was give my payroll team more work.”

And while on-demand pay isn't solving stagnant wages or making groceries and other living expenses less costly, Ferlmann said it does offer freedom and control to his employees. “The average amount my employees are taking out at one time is anywhere from $85 to $90,” he said. “It's not a huge amount but makes the difference between a stressed employee and one that feels secure about taking care of bills.”