Misguided attempts to blame poverty on payday lending

Jobs fight poverty. Having a job empowers consumers to provide. Yet groups like the Anti-Poverty Coalition of Greater Dallas seem to have missed the memo, suggests the Payday Pundit. Fighting poverty is the coalition’s intended reason for attacking payday lending, reports the Dallas Observer. Article source – Killing payday lending does not fight poverty by MoneyBlogNewz.

What Larry James has to say

The coalition is hoping to create ways out of poverty. This is what CitySquare CEO Larry James said in a press release to the media:

“The Anti-Poverty Coalition of Greater Dallas is a new coalition that seeks to move 250,000 people out of poverty permanently by 2020 by coordinating efforts to keep people from falling into poverty and increasing pathways out of poverty,” writes James.

'A treadmill of debt’ is there

James says that, individuals fall into poverty in “a treadmill of debt” when getting personal loans and private loans, which is why they’re being attacked. All zoning ordinances would be challenged with legislation like SB 253 and Texas HB 410 that would keep personal loan companies out of the credit service organization category. The poor would be much better off with a “strong zoning ordinance to decrease the clustering of payday and auto title lending stores.” This is why the Poverty Coalition of Greater Dallas is attempting to get it put together. It believes that many would be better off with payday lending taken from them. There is nothing that speaks to Wall Street or bad spending habits being involved. In truth, eliminating payday loan lenders limits consumer choice and costs Texas jobs, both dire consequences in light of the recession-ravaged economy.

Better attack could have been prepared

Instituting zoning ordinances via HB 410 and SB 253 that would require personal unsecured loan and installment loan outlets to be at least 1,000 feet apart would only be the beginning, industry experts believe. When it comes to getting poverty fixed, it doesn’t really make sense to attack personal loan companies with 36 percent Annual Percentage Rate caps which would end up shutting down the corporations and putting more individuals out of work.

What “anti-poverty” coalitions really want is not shown in the zoning attacks. Communities without access have a higher poverty level in reality according to extant independent research. The Anti-Poverty Coalition of Greater Dallas and other charitable groups should take the time to review this research before putting all this effort into something that may really hurt the end goal.

Citations

Dallas Observer

blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2011/04/new_anti-poverty_coalition_to.php

Payday Pundit

paydaypundit.org/2011/04/12/flawed-plan/

Texas HB 410

capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=82R&Bill=HB410

Texas SB 253

capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=82R&Bill=SB253

Texas Secretary of State

sos.state.tx.us/statdoc/faqs2800.shtml

Jobs fight poverty

youtu.be/w0v7OMt3vio