My name is Brianna Tong, and I’m a student at the University of Chicago. I’m a leader in our on-campus organization, Southside Solidarity Network, and in the IIRON Student Network, because I want to win economic and racial justice for all people, and that young people will be at the forefront of a movement to make that happen.
Predatory check cashing and payday lending companies have been exploiting working class Americans for decades, by charging outrageous fees and triple digit interest rates. But now we have a chance to give the millions of Americans without access to affordable basic financial services a fair, publicly owned alternative to payday lenders and big banks.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has an exciting new proposal that would allow post offices around the country to offer basic financial services like check cashing and bill paying.
According to study released in January by the United States Postal Service’s Inspector General, 68 million Americans – nearly 1 in 4 households -- are underserved by banks and forced to rely on exploitative and wildly expensive payday lenders. Many of these people spend as much as $2,400 each year on inflated interest rates and unnecessary fees.
Across the globe, countries like Japan, Germany and Kenya have had great success with postal banking. And for more than 50 years, post offices in the United States were also allowed to offer banking services. Despite the program’s widespread success, both at providing banking services and generating billions of dollars in revenue for the United States Postal Service, Congress ended the program in 1967.
Given the lack of access to affordable banking services currently experiences by tens of millions of Americans, Congress needs take immediate action to enact Senator Warren’s proposal to bring a public option for financial services back to the United States.
While there’s been a lot of buzz lately about Senator Warren’s postal banking proposal, it needs support in Congress to become law. By signing my petition you can help build that support and add real momentum to the fight for postal banking.
- http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116374/postal-service-banking-how-usps-can-save-itself-and-help-poor
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/coming-to-a-post-office-n_b_4709485.html
- http://www.npr.org/2014/02/07/272652648/post-office-could-rack-up-billions-by-offering-money-services
- http://www.thenation.com/article/178361/why-we-need-bank-post-office#
- http://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2014/rarc-wp-14-007.pdf