â??The payday lender is kind of the emergency banker for the working poor,â?? explains journalist Gary Rivlin. â??The idea is that you have some bills that you have to pay today â?? your check isnâ??t coming for a couple weeks, and you can take a loan out against that upcoming check.â??
In return, a person agrees to pay interest on the loan â?? which can be up to â??200 percent interest or more on their money,â?? Rivlin says. â??Itâ??s a bridge loan to cover a gap, but the problem is, the gap keeps getting wider and wider.â??
Rivlin goes behind the scenes of the payday lending industry in his new book Broke, USA, which examines the $33 billion-a-year â??poverty industry.â?? Rivlin, who attended an annual conference of check cashers to learn industry tips, says he decided to write about the industry because of its rapid growth in recent years.
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Turning Poverty Into A Multibillion-Dollar Industry
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