A recent study analyzing data from EarnIn’s Cash Out product has been promoted as evidence that the payday lending app marketed as earned wage access (“EWA”) improves workers’ financial stability by increasing income. A closer reading of the study, however, reveals the opposite: the reported income increase is likely driven by workers supplying more labor, while the payday lending app use itself causes higher bank penalty fees, escalating borrowing, and repeated fee payments. Far from undermining prior research, the EarnIn Study corroborates core Center for Responsible Lending findings that payday loan apps deepen—rather than relieve—financial instability.
