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The unbanking of America : how the new middle class survives / Lisa Servon.

Servon, Lisa J., (author.).

Summary:

Discusses the problems with American banking and investigates such informal banking alternatives as check-cashing businesses, payday lenders, and lending clubs.
"An urgent, absorbing exposé--why Americans are fleeing our broken banking system in growing numbers, and how alternatives are rushing in to do what banks once did. 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 banking and credit system. Today nearly half of all Americans live from paycheck to paycheck, and income volatility has doubled over the past thirty years. Banks, with their high monthly fees and overdraft charges, are gouging their low- and middle-income customers while serving only the wealthiest Americans. Lisa Servon delivers a stunning indictment of America's banks, together with eye-opening dispatches from inside a range of banking alternatives that have sprung up to fill the void. She works as a teller at RiteCheck, a check-cashing business in the South Bronx, and as a payday lender in Oakland. She looks closely at the workings of a tanda, an informal lending club. And she delivers engaging, hopeful portraits of the entrepreneurs reacting to the unbanking of America by designing systems to creatively serve many of us."--Jacket.

Record details

  • ISBN: 0544602315
  • ISBN: 9780544602311
  • ISBN: 9781328745705
  • ISBN: 1328745708
  • Physical Description: xix, 250 pages ; 24 cm
  • Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2017]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-240) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
We're all underbanked -- Where everybody knows your name -- Bankonomics, or How banking changed and most of us lost out -- The new middle class -- The credit trap: "bad debt" and real life -- Payday loans: making the best of poor options -- Living in the minus: the millennial perspective -- Borrowing and saving under the radar -- Inside the innovators -- Rejecting the new normal.
Subject:
Banks and banking > United States.
Financial institutions > United States.

Available copies

  • 14 of 14 copies available at NC Cardinal.
  • 1 of 1 copy available at Onslow County Public Library. (Show)

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 14 total copies.
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Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Jacksonville Main Library 332.10973 SER (Text) 36015000673042 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Albert Carlton - Cashiers Community Library 332.1097 S (Text) 39493108086259 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Angier Public Library 332.1097 Ser PBK (Text) 33632002706886 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Cleveland County Main Library 332.109 SER (Text) 22281500131894 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Cliffdale Library 332.1097 S (Text) 31781061992622 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Cumberland Headquarters 332.1097 S (Text) 31781061992598 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Goldsboro Library 332.109 SER (Text) 900000000472796 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Henderson Main Branch 332.1 S (Text) 33258008140662 Adult Nonfiction Available -
High Point Library 332.10973 Servon (Text) 30519009858567 Adult Nonfiction Available -
Kinston-Lenoir County Public Library 332.109 S (Text) 39149007475114 Adult Nonfiction Available -