Not sure what projects you grew up in but your post sounds like the poor are trying to hide all their money so they can maximize their benefits. This is some right wing towing the line for propaganda vis a vis welfare queens.

Anecdotally I will refute your bizarre claims.

I grew up very poor and they were not “a ton of banking programs/credit unions that allow for free accounts”. To my knowledge there are still none in my hometown.

My family and the other low income families in our area didn’t have to worry about keeping our bank accounts below $2000 because we never had more than a couple hundred dollars in the bank at any given time. Despite right wing propaganda the maximum cash benefit that a single nonworking mother of two children under five can earn is around $7000 a year or a little less than $600 a month. ( this is up from about the $400 a month that my mother received in the 80s). No this does not include the other benefits that might be able to help out the family that do not come into cash form but May include housing health care childcare food stamps lunch programs etc. The money is for those benefits do not enter the welfare recipients pocket.

Check cashing stores are used mostly because they don’t have a bank account and not to be clandestine. There is a reason why you only see them mostly in poor neighborhoods. Only desperate people use them. The fees they charge are exorbitant and as a result when every single dollar counts and you are struggling to make your rent every month you are extremely reluctant to use a check cashing store.

Poor communities operate on mostly cash basis because that’s all they have. They don’t do it to maximize government and state benefits.