Payday loans – money that motivates
The idea that short-term emergency cash can be obtained via payday loans is a real motivator for many consumers to apply. Money, it’s quite obvious, is a great motivator. According to Serena Gordon of U.S. News and World Report, some employers are using money to motivate their charges to be more healthy. Specifically, they want them to stop smoking.
A February 12, 2009 New England Journal of Medicine study shows that General Electric employees were offered up to $750 to kick their habit. After one year, 14.7 percent of the group that received extra cash were still free of the cancer sticks’ lure. Only 5 percent of employees who weren’t paid during the study managed to stay clean. Even though the former figure is low, it’s much higher than the success rate for most stop smoking methods.
Cashing in on behavior modification
Dr. Kevin Volpp of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Wharton School said that “Incentives do work in changing health behaviors, and they can be successful in people who have not succeeded using other approaches in the past.” Volpp believes the financial incentives provided both positive feedback and immediate gratification, which likely contributed to the method’s effectiveness.
Employers likely believe that programs of this nature will be financially fruitful for them, as it could increase worker productivity and decrease sick days and health care premium costs.
Is this the best way for companies to spend their money?
Similar studies have proven that cash can encourage other healthy habits. The American Journal of Preventive Medicine and RTI International in North Carolina are just a couple that Gordon notes. Cash Advance Mojo agrees that good health is vitally important, and that it sometimes takes a little push to set a difficult plan in motion. Money can be a motivator to change, and payday loans can be a motivator to budget more for life’s little surprises next time. However, I’d like to believe that people will more readily choose quality of life of their own accord. Then perhaps companies can use that money to improve their own bottom line and retain employees during this recession.
Related articles
- For Short-Term Weight Loss, Economic Incentives Work (medicalnewstoday.com)
- The biggest loser: Buying weight loss (sciam.com)
It’s been said that if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything. Smoking is a hard habit to kick – there have been studies demonstrating that it’s more addictive than crack – but it’s worthwhile to do it. You save money, and then there are those fringe benefits like not smelling all the time, your breath smelling better, and that whole not dying too young thing. The comedy was that a higher percentage of the paid group went back to smoking than the non-paid group.
In British Columbia Canada, there is a program to give high school graduating students $5,000.00 if they don’t smoke. If you don’t start, you won’t have to quit. Sounds good to me.
It is a shame that some people have to get paid to save their own life! That is how strong the addiction to cigarettes is! The addiction to smoking is one of the worst addictions I think anyone could have and my hat is off to everyone who has quit! For the people who still smoke and want to quit there is a new device called an electronic cigarette that may help you to taper down and quit much like the nicotine patch system that is just brilliant!
I used to smoke 3.5 to 4 packs a day for about 10 years, and a lesser amount for 10 years before that. My parents gave me 1000.00 to quit but if i started back, i had to pay it back. As i had spent it i sure did’nt want to have paid it back. I quit may 6th 1991 and never even lit another one again. I feel much better and think that whatever it takes to quit is good.
I think it’s absolutely wonderful what they’re doing. If a company can afford to pay people to save their own lives then why not? The world would be a better place if people had the same kind of attitude as General Electric. Kicking the butt is hard. Smokers who have support from others will most likely succeed in quitting.
awesome idea!