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Happy new year!

I missed you. Yes, even the Monday evening procrastination to make sure this hits your inbox first thing Tuesday morning.

I spent 2025 building this newsletter from scratch, and today there are nearly 600 of you here. You have been clear about what resonates, and one thing came through consistently: you like the deep dives. Especially the ones that connect dots that are not obvious or widely covered.

So I listened. And I reorganized.

Here is the new monthly rhythm, at least for now:

Week one is a thematic deep dive.
Week two is companies to watch.
Week three is a Five Questions With feature.
On Sundays, you will get guest highlights from the Money Memories podcast.

As this community grows, subscribers will also get access to original market maps, like this one from December:

Less scavenger hunt, more signal.

My goal is for this to become a trusted source for early access to best-in-class founders before breakout, alongside thoughtful analysis of what is actually moving tech and commerce.

Of course, I can decide to throw my hands up and just “vibe.” But I’d like to think I have more follow-through than that.

Lastly, I am also looking to partner with people interested in working on market maps, especially curious students who want real exposure to early-stage investing. If someone comes to mind, please share this newsletter!

Now, on to the good stuff.

This month’s theme is healthcare and its growing impact on the global consumer wallet. Rising premiums, higher out-of-pocket costs, and the rollback of public subsidies are forcing households to absorb volatility that used to be buffered by employers or the state. Against that backdrop, we are starting close to home, with earned wage access as a lens into how people manage short-term financial stress when essential costs spike.

I sat down with Jonathan Davis, an economics professor at the University of Oregon, to unpack new research he conducted in partnership with EarnIn on earned wage access and financial wellbeing for my upcoming episode of Money Memories. The timing matters. Healthcare costs are increasingly arriving as liquidity shocks rather than predictable expenses, and wages, for many workers, remain locked behind inflexible payroll systems.

Jonathan is not a fintech founder or operator. He is a researcher who has spent his career evaluating whether interventions actually improve people’s lives. That perspective is important because earned wage access is often discussed as a product category or regulatory question, rather than as a rigorously evaluated economic tool.

At the same time, the broader consumer context is deteriorating. As enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expire, many households are seeing health insurance premiums double or more. For some families, coverage is now approaching a quarter of annual gross income. Others are downgrading plans, dropping coverage altogether, or limiting income to remain subsidy-eligible. Healthcare is no longer just a long-term affordability issue. It is a recurring cash-flow problem.

That is where earned wage access enters the conversation. Not as a solution to healthcare costs, but as a mechanism for absorbing timing mismatches between income and essential expenses. This conversation reframes earned wage access away from abstract fintech debates and toward its role in helping households navigate rising, unavoidable costs in real time.

Below are five fintech takeaways from the research and why they matter far beyond earned wage access.

1️⃣ When healthcare costs spike, the timing of pay becomes consequential.

Earned wage access does not raise nominal wages, but the research shows it changes behavior in ways that effectively increase income. Users saw a $334 income increase over three months, roughly an 11.5% lift, because earlier access to pay encourages additional labor supply.

That dynamic matters in a healthcare environment where costs arrive in large, inflexible monthly bills. As the New York Times reported recently, some households are now facing insurance premiums of $2,000 to $4,000 per month after the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, in some cases nearing a quarter of gross income. When a single bill can consume an entire paycheck, the ability to access earned wages earlier can determine whether people work more, take on additional shifts, or reduce hours due to stress and instability.

2️⃣ Earned wage access fills a healthcare liquidity gap without creating medical debt.

A central finding of the research is structural. Earned wage access is not borrowing against future income. Users are accessing wages already earned, with no mandatory fees and repayment that occurs automatically at payday.

This distinction becomes critical as healthcare costs increasingly push households toward tradeoffs that resemble credit decisions. The Times documents people dipping into savings, canceling coverage, or limiting income to preserve subsidies. Others downgrade to high-deductible plans that shift thousands of dollars of risk onto households. In that context, earned wage access functions as a liquidity bridge that helps people pay premiums, prescriptions, or medical bills without resorting to high-cost credit or delaying care.

3️⃣ Healthcare shocks trigger adoption, but stability gains persist.

Medical expenses are one of the most common negative financial shocks households face. Premium increases, prescription refills, or unexpected care costs often arrive without warning. Jonathan’s research accounts for this by comparing early adopters of earned wage access to late adopters with nearly identical financial profiles.

Even after controlling for the initial shock, income gains and stability improvements persisted. This matters in a healthcare system where volatility is increasing. The Times describes couples canceling coverage for one spouse, early retirees gambling on staying healthy until Medicare eligibility, and small-business owners curbing income to manage premiums. Earned wage access does not eliminate these structural problems, but it measurably improves a household’s ability to absorb them over time.

4️⃣ Healthcare-related spending shows up directly in earned wage access usage.

When users accessed an average of $95 in earned wages, roughly two-thirds went to essentials. Gas, utilities, rent, phone bills, credit card repayment, and notably, a measurable increase in pharmaceutical spending.

This aligns with the Times’ reporting on households choosing between coverage, savings depletion, and out-of-pocket medical costs. As more people move into Bronze plans with higher deductibles or lose coverage entirely, healthcare expenses increasingly resemble day-to-day cash needs rather than rare emergencies. Earned wage access is being used not for discretionary spending, but to manage the basics of staying insured and healthy.

5️⃣ Payroll is lagging the rest of the economy

Healthcare costs are increasingly real-time, monthly, and unforgiving. Payroll is not. While essential expenses demand immediate payment, many workers still wait two weeks or longer to access income they have already earned.

The Times highlights people facing premium bills of $3,000 to $4,000 per month, often due at the beginning of the coverage period. In that environment, payroll lag becomes a structural vulnerability. Earned wage access is not simply a fintech feature. It is a signal that payroll infrastructure has failed to evolve alongside essential cost structures like healthcare, which now behave more like rent than occasional expenses.

🎧 Over the holidays, I featured Kathryn Bricken, the founder of Doughlicious, a better-for-you cookie dough gelato brand. This month’s conversations shift to earned wage access with Jonathan Davis and housing-driven labor mobility with Jeff Hurst, CEO of Furnished Finder.
👉 Listen on NPR, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts

Ask: I am looking for a place to record in LA for upcoming episodes. Ideally something with good acoustics and privacy, whether it is a studio, podcast space, or rentable office. If you have any leads, please let me know.

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Till next week,
Ilona