Even GOP Voters Are Applauding AOC and Sanders for Taking on Lenders

Five states have now passed referenda limiting payday loans: South Dakota, Ohio, Arizona, Montana, and this past November, Colorado. There, voters overwhelmingly passed a measure capping interest rates at 36 percent on payday loans. Earlier this spring, Nevada legislators, urged on by the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, became the latest group to head into battle over the issue. As with the reform in Colorado, they are calling for a 36 percent interest rate cap on these loans. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, the Maine Center for Economic Policy is pushing a “stop the debt trap” movement against predatory payday lending, pushing for the CFPB to maintain requirements that payday lenders determine whether a borrower can afford to repay the loan before lending them money; and limiting the number of open payday loans that a customer can have. Like so many economic justice campaigns, Stop the Debt Trap is partly about defending existing regulations from the Trump administration’s efforts to roll them back, and partly about defining a new set of regulations to tackle growing economic inequity.

Click here to read the full story, first published on May 16, 2019, in Truthout.