The Unbanking of America: How the New Middle Class Survives

ISBN-13: 9781328745705 / Angielski / Miękka / 2018 / 272 str.

Lisa Servon

Opis

" A] startling and absorbing expose . . . Required reading for fans of muckraking authors like Barbara Ehrenreich." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A smart, lucid, and original take on how our banking system became such a mess. This is an important book." --Jake Halpern, author of Bad Paper

What do an undocumented immigrant in the South Bronx, a high-net-worth entrepreneur, and a twenty-something graduate student have in common? All three are victims of our dysfunctional mainstream bank and credit system. Today nearly half of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck, as income volatility has doubled over the past thirty years. Banks, with their monthly fees and high overdraft charges, take advantage of these fluctuations rather than help their lower- and middle-income customers manage them. Lisa Servon delivers provocative dispatches from inside a range of banking alternatives serving a steadily increasing number of Americans. She works as a teller at RiteCheck, a check-cashing business in the South Bronx; as a payday lender in Oakland, California; and looks closely at the workings of a tanda, an informal lending club. And she delivers fascinating, hopeful portraits of the entrepreneurs reacting to the unbanking of America--and designing systems to transform how nonwealthy Americans can gain the access to and agency over their own money that they, especially, need.