Low-income Workers and Banking – New York City

City’s poor still distrust banks, By Christine Haughney, August 17, 2009, New York Times: “In 1986, when the Lower East Side had just one bank in a 100-square-block area, the high numbers of residents without bank accounts alarmed the city but did not surprise anyone. In the years since, the number of bank branches has skyrocketed, with the big names compelled to open in underserved areas. Community credit unions have sprung up from Washington Heights to Bedford-Stuyvesant. Outreach workers have taken to the streets to draw the ‘unbanked’ – many of them the city’s poorest, living check to check – into the system and away from the high-fee world of check-cashing and money orders…”