The "Unbanked"

We always hear about "the unbanked" i.e. the people who don't have bank accounts.

A client called me this morning. He has a small farm that he has run for about 15 yeas as a side gig. He retired form his real job 12/31 and is planning on spending a lot of time, with his wife, hanging out with his kids / grandkids in another state.

In light of this, he has decided to hire an employee to work on the farm. He has never had an employee before (he just did most of the work himself and occasionally hired contract labor when needed). This plan is this person will work roughly 25 hours a week. In addition to the daily work on the farm he will do some upkeep projects on the property that have been neglected for years.

Anywho client calls me to tell me all this and to ask me about how to handle payroll, etc, since he may not be physically present many times to physically pay the guy. He mentioned the employee has a green card, has been in the US over 20 years, and recently got in a whole bunch of tax trouble because a prior employer was paying him cash, that employer got audited, the employer was then forced to file W-2s late, which got traced back to this guy, and now he owes a bunch of money.

Client says, employee wants to be above board, but I don't know how to pay him, since the employee doesn't have a checking account, and doesn't want a checking account, because he has never trusted the banking system.

He's going to go back and talk to the employee about setting op a checking account at the client's bank, where the client knows the bank officers, or if not that, to see if the employee will at least apply for a payroll debit card.

It just boggles my mind how someone can live an adult life and not have a checking account. My two kids - who are not even old enough to work - each have a checking account, savings account, and a very, very small investment account.

I love the high finance topics discussed on this board... and today was a reminder there is a whole other world out there.