More Americans come into the banking system, By Mitchell Hartman, September 9, 2016, Marketplace: “‘Unbanked’ is the term used by financial regulators and consumer advocates to describe people who live, work, pay bills and borrow for emergencies, entirely outside the traditional banking system. Being ‘unbanked’ can limit peoples’ access to affordable credit, and leave them vulnerable to predatory lending…”
Tag: Financial security
Predatory Lending
Payday loans’ potentially predatory replacement, By Gillian B. White, August 12, 2016, The Atlantic: “Dangerous, high-cost lending isn’t going away anytime soon. While some have heralded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s long-awaited payday-lending regulations as significant progress toward the end of predatory lending practices, other, similar products have, as predicted, started to take their place…”
Income and Savings of People with Disabilities
These government rules trap millions of Americans in poverty, By Ben Steverman, August 2, 2016, Bloomberg: “Susanne Brasset has $5 in her bank account. She’s scared to save more. Brasset, a 39-year-old freelance photographer in Denver, has cerebral palsy, which limits her ability to work. To pay her bills, she relies on Social Security, which she gets because of her disability. But the program monitors her bank accounts to make sure she’s not putting away too much money. With more than a few thousand in the bank, she’d be disqualified for the program, as well as for Medicaid and other crucial benefits. Unable to plan for the future, Brasset said her finances put her in a ‘constant state of anxiety and fear…'”