Fourteen states prohibit payday financing, calling it predatory. The government that is federal stepping in, too. However for those who require the cash, you can find few choices.
A trio of outsized blue guitars mounted on a telegraph pole face onto the fertile farmlands of the Mississippi Delta at a highway junction outside town. In blues mythology, this crossroads is The Crossroads, where guitar player Robert Johnson traded their heart towards the devil for musical genius. Today it is a stoplight on Highway 61, a sun-baked strip of discount malls, gasoline stations, fast-food joints – and half dozen shops providing quick money..
A high-school teacher, it’s a strip of debt and shame and heartache for Jennifer Williams. For a long time, she’d invest every payday shop that goes shop, wanting to maintain repayments, even while sliding deeper into financial obligation. At one point she owed 1000s of dollars to nine loan that is payday in three towns.
Stories like hers have shone a spotlight that is harsh an ecosystem of alternative finance that affluent bank clients seldom see. In majority-black towns