The Color of Debt: How Collection Suits Squeeze Black Neighborhoods

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/32898-the-color-of-debt-how-collection-suits-squeeze-black-neighborhoods

hat’s not only true in Jennings. The story is the same down the road in Normandy and in every other black community nearby. In fact, when ProPublica attempted to measure, for the first time, the prevalence of judgments stemming from these suits, a clear pattern emerged: they were massed in black neighborhoods.

The disparity was not merely because black families earn less than white families. Our analysis of five years of court judgments from three metropolitan areas — St. Louis, Chicago and Newark — showed that even accounting for income, the rate of judgments was twice as high in mostly black neighborhoods as it was in mostly white ones.

These findings could suggest racial bias by lenders or collectors. But we found that there is another explanation: That generations of discrimination have left black families with grossly fewer resources to draw on when they come under financial pressure.

Over the past year, ProPublica has investigated a little-known but pervasive shift in the way debt is collected in America: Companies now routinely use the courts to pursue millions of people over even small consumer debts. With the power granted by a court judgment, collectors can seize a chunk of a debtor’s pay. The highest rates of garnishment are among workers who earn between $25,000 and $40,000, but the numbers are nearly as high for those who earn even less.

Despite their prevalence, these suits remain remarkably hidden, even to people in the communities most burdened by them.

In the city of St. Louis and surrounding St. Louis County, where Jennings lies, only about a quarter of the population lives in neighborhoods where most residents are black. But over half of court judgments were concentrated in these neighborhoods.

[marym625]

1. K&R!

And we are again saddled with debtor's prisons. And this time with corporations profiting from people going to prison.

It is despicable

[Fumesucker]

4. Donald Trump has been bankrupt what, four times now?

Welcome to DU!

[KG]

5. enjoy your short stay...

[Decoy of Fenris]

7. 7-0 Hide and a cold-served Tombstone. Blap. n/t

[Fumesucker]

3. Biden's bankruptcy bill did not help this situation at all

Of course it did make the Credit Card companies that are incorporated in Delaware very happy.

Hillary voted for the bankruptcy bill too, in fact she used Biden to excuse that vote.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/dem-primaries/254144-clinton-uses-biden-to-defend-bankruptcy-bill-vote

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Thursday said Vice President Joe Biden was part of the reason she backed a bankruptcy bill that liberals vehemently oppose.

She was asked during a campaign stop in New Hampshire about a 2001 vote she made that was supported by the credit card industry, according to The Wall Street Journal.

[cstanleytech]

8. I really detest debt collection agencies, before my mother died when she was in the hospital we

started getting calls from one trying to collect on her bill and the women I spoke to was so nasty that if I saw her on the side of the road bleeding out I would probably just keep on driving.