The Unbanking of America : How the New Middle Class Survives

Servon, Lisa

ISBN 10: 1328745708 / ISBN 13: 9781328745705

Published by HarperCollins Publishers, 2018

About this Item

Former library copy. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Seller Inventory # 14382750-75

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Unbanking of America : How the New Middle Class Survives
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1328745708
• ISBN 13: 9781328745705
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 0.461 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

“[A] startling and absorbing exposé . . . Required reading for fans of muckraking authors like Barbara Ehrenreich.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
 
“Exceptional . . . thorough, and even gut-wrenching. A significant contribution.”—American Prospect
 
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 bank and credit system. 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 lower- 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.

About the Author

LISA SERVON is Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania and a former dean of the New School.  Her work on consumer financial services has been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic online, and The New Yorker online, among many others. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.