Back in the day, we were instructed: "You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets…" (Deuteronomy 24:15). Nowadays, only those that are in cash businesses, such as tipped employees in the restaurant business, or laborers in the agricultural fields of America, do these employees typically receive their wages on the day that they perform their work, and everyone else is stuck getting paid per the conditions of their particular employer and although the prevailing government authority is the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the FLSA provides a few generic rules, with State authorities having the option of imposing their own rules in a given State, so that depending upon the State, pay may be mandated at a minimum of at least two pay periods per month, or in some, as infrequently as once per month. In addition, to pay periods which are typically going to be weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly, States have a further requirement of timing in regards to the end of the pay period and the lag time for employees to get paid, in which, this too varies from State-to-State, of which, some have lag times of up to eighteen days, whereas others are only eight days.
In an era in which so many employees struggle paycheck to paycheck, the frequency of pay along with the lag time between pay periods and the actual payment of wages due, should in all fairness, be accommodating to the employees who are performing the work. The fact that companies in certain States, can pay employees on a frequency basis of just once per month, while also having a lag time of making that payment of up to fifteen days, such as in Idaho, means, in effect, that it's legal for someone who has worked the entire month of March, not to be paid until April 15th, which seems both ridiculous as well as an unnecessary burden upon the employees.
In point of fact, the FLSA should be updated to mandate that at least two paychecks are issued to employees each month, unless a collective bargaining agreement provides otherwise, for two very important reasons, of which one is that the budgeting of money for payment of bills for a significant amount of people is quite problematic with just one pay period per month, as well as the fact that in our capitalistic society, businesses are created and businesses fail each and every day, to which, the employee should not be vulnerable to losing up to six weeks of salary (one month accrued plus two weeks current) when certain businesses close their doors, as the labor portion of any business is almost always a significant expense.
The fairest way to pay employees is actually to pay their wage at the completion of a given day, but for most industries this isn't going to be the norm, anytime soon. In point of fact, frequency of pay, along with minimum lag times in regards to that pay should be a top consideration for any business, especially businesses in which a significant portion of their employees literally live paycheck to paycheck. In practicality, grace periods for payment of rent are typically around three calendar days, and most credit card payments offer only a grace period without having to pay monetary interest, only if the balance due is paid no later than by the due date, whereas employers in certain States have grace periods of up to eighteen days, to pay wages that are due and payable to their employees, hardly a fair deal.