Pledge-to-Pay: Revolutionizing Employee Benefits with Technology

Joshua Davis
4 min readJun 2, 2023

In the world of employee benefits, the landscape is changing. Traditional methods of providing benefits like paid sick leave are being challenged by innovative solutions that leverage technology. One such solution is Pledge-to-Pay, a system that uses the power of blockchain technology to transform the way we think about employee benefits.

Pledge-to-Pay is a novel approach that uses technology to transform traditional paid sick leave coverage into a benefit plan. When an employee joins a company that uses Pledge-to-Pay, 2% of an employee’s paycheck is automatically set aside each month. This money goes into a special account, similar to a Health Savings Account (HSA), but with a twist. The funds are held in a digital format, like a cryptocurrency, and the system ensures that these funds are only used for their intended purpose — to cover employee benefits.

Pledge-to-Pay is a system that is designed with fairness and transparency at its core. It operates on the principle of crowdfunding, a concept that has been successfully implemented in various sectors, including healthcare sharing ministries. In these ministries, community members make regular contributions into individual accounts, which are then used to fund payments for valid claims. Pledge-to-Pay adopts a similar approach, but with a focus on employee benefits.

When an employee joins a company that uses Pledge-to-Pay, a portion of their paycheck is automatically set aside each month. This money is held in an account that functions similarly to a Health Savings Account (HSA). However, unlike traditional HSAs, these funds are not just sitting idle until employee’s need them. Instead, they are part of a larger pool of funds that are used to crowdfund claims for paid sick leave.

This is where the power of crowdfunding comes into play. When a claim is made, the funds to cover it are drawn from the collective pool of all employees within the company. This means that the financial burden of covering the claim is shared evenly among all employees. It’s a system that promotes solidarity and mutual support, ensuring that no single individual is left to bear the cost of a claim alone.

But what happens to an employee’s funds if they leave their job? The beauty of Pledge-to-Pay is that employee’s retain full control over their own funds. If they leave their job, the money in their account is theirs to take with them. Their employer has no access to these funds and cannot use them for any other purpose.

Pledge-to-Pay is not just a new way to manage employee benefits. It’s a revolutionary approach that leverages the power of crowdfunding to provide a secure, transparent, and cost-effective solution. By shifting from an insurance regulatory framework to a crowdfunding regulatory framework, Pledge-to-Pay aims to reduce the cost of regulatory compliance significantly. This strategy, known as jurisdictional arbitrage, is designed to take advantage of discrepancies between competing legal jurisdictions to reduce the cost of regulatory overhead.

Eliminating wage theft

Pledge-to-Pay is more than just a new way to manage paid sick leave. It’s a solution to a real-world problem: providing secure, fraud-resistant benefits in a cost-effective and regulatory compliant manner. It’s a practical application of technology to solve a specific problem, namely the problem of wage theft.

The current system places earned wages in the form of unpaid benefits into the custody of employers. Furthermore, employers may not always be obligated to pay these wages in full to employees in the event of a bankruptcy.

Pledge-to-pay enforces the ownership rights of employee funds using technology instead of the legal system. By doing so it mitigates the need for employees to rely on the courts to seek relief from wage theft. With Pledge-to-pay a corporate insolvency does not pose a risk to unpaid employee wages (existing in the form of benefits). This is because these funds are held on the employee’s phone from the moment they are deducted from the employee’s paycheck. Custody of the phone guarantees custody of the funds. With this design the technology is able to protect employee assets more effectively than the court’s authority to enforce legal penalties upon employers.

Maintaining legal compliance

One of the key advantages of Pledge-to-Pay is its ability to overcome the coordination failure that often occurs when employees are forced to opt-in to using such a service. By automating the enrollment process and making payroll deductions mandatory, Pledge-to-Pay simplifies the signup process and ensures that all employees can benefit from the system.

On the legal side, Pledge-to-Pay is designed to comply with laws and regulations, including the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the Voluntary Employee Benefit Association (VEBA) arrangements. These laws help ensure that employee benefits are protected.

The goal of Pledge-to-Pay is to provide a secure, transparent, and efficient way to manage employee paid sick leave benefits. It’s a novel approach that could revolutionize the way we think about employee benefits. the potential benefits for employees are significant.

In conclusion, Pledge-to-Pay represents a significant step forward in the world of employee benefits. By leveraging the power of crowdfunding, it offers a solution that is not only secure and transparent but also cost-effective and regulatory compliant. It’s a testament to the power of innovation and a glimpse into the future of employee benefits.

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