Major banks aid in payday loans banned by states, By Jessica Silver-Greenberg, February 23, 2013, New York Times: “Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent. With 15 states banning payday loans, a growing number of the lenders have set up online operations in more hospitable states or far-flung locales like Belize, Malta and the West Indies to more easily evade statewide caps on interest rates. While the banks, which include giants like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, do not make the loans, they are a critical link for the lenders, enabling the lenders to withdraw payments automatically from borrowers’ bank accounts, even in states where the loans are banned entirely…”
Day: February 25, 2013
Poverty Rates by Race and Ethnicity
- Poverty rates higher for blacks and Hispanics than whites and Asians, By Carol Morello, February 20, 2013, Washington Post: “Blacks and Hispanics in Maryland and Virginia are much more likely to be poor than whites or Asians there, but their poverty rates are still lower than the national average, the Census Bureau said Wednesday. A census report on poverty rates for various racial and ethnic groups found poverty widespread among American Indians, blacks and Hispanics…”
- New report breaks down poverty levels among Latinos, By Emily DeRuy, February 21, 2013, ABC News: “Latinos are anything but homogenous, a fact underscored by a new Census Bureau report that shows a significant variance in poverty rates among different subgroups of Hispanics. The overall poverty rate for Hispanics is about 23 percent, but that number alone doesn’t do the millions of diverse Latinos living in the United States justice. The average Mexican, for example, has a very different life story than the average Cuban…”