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| New to the newsletter? Subscribe to The Daily Money to get the best consumer and financial news from USA TODAY delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. And give our news-inspired Spotify playlist a listen. It features every song quoted here. |
| Happy Friday and Earth Day, Daily Money readers. Jayme Deerwester here with you. Weather-wise, it's going to be a really nice weekend and I suspect my pool-curious coonhound/pointer pup may finally take the plunge and go for a swim. |
💵 HGTV's 'Home Town' fights payday lenders 💵 |
| Each year, an estimated 12 million Americans use payday loans – short-term, high-interest loans that are supposed to be repaid during the next pay period, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Fees can range from $10 to $30 for every $100 borrowed, and the annual percentage rate can exceed 500% for a two-week loan. |
| At least 784 payday lenders operate in Mississippi, according to its state Department of Banking & Consumer Finance records. That's at least five times more than the number (140) of McDonald's outlets. |
| Several cities and towns, including Laurel, where 61% of the community is Black and the annual per capita income is $23,146, are partnering with banks and the nonprofit law firm Mississippi Center for Justice to form a credit partnership program that would provide an alternative to predatory lending in low-income communities. |
| "Mississippi has had very lax regulations on payday lending," said Max Meyers, director of consumer protection for the law firm. "It's really important for the country to know what is happening in this state … We are fighting against injustice." |
📰 More headlines you can't miss 📰 |
| PACK A MASK ANYWAY: Why you may still want to carry a face mask around for travel. |
| HAS YOUR CAR BEEN RECALLED? Ford, Tesla, GM, Nissan, Toyota and Audi are among this week's announcements. |
| WANT TO LIVE INDEPENDENTLY IN RETIREMENT? As boomers and Gen Xers age, changes will be needed to accommodate disabilities. |
| STOP, COLLABORATE AND LISTEN: Google and Facebook users should do this quick privacy check now. |
| EARTH DAY: Here's why it pays for small businesses to care about it. |
🏡 Repeating the mistakes of 2008 🏡 |
| At least 1 in 5 American borrowers have turned to alternative financing at least once in their lifetime, embracing high-cost home loans with unfavorable terms, according to a new report by The Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit think tank. And experts worry many more low-wage workers have embraced risky lenders and non-traditional home loans during the rush in recent years to purchase property, a worrisome trend that could result in mass foreclosures and plummeting neighborhood property values, as we saw in the 2008 financial crisis. |
| "Alternative financing is pitched as another pathway to homeownership when mortgages are not available, but the reality is many alternative financing borrowers never achieve their goal of owning," said Tara Roche, manager of The Pew Charitable Trusts' home financing project. |
| Why are people taking that risk? A shortage of mortgages for properties valued at less than $150,000 may be driving the demand, along with factors such as low credit scores that have penalized prospective homebuyers, the Pew report said. |
🎧 Mood music 🎧 |
| R.E.M.'s "Fall on Me" – a 1986 environmental song that singer Michael Stipe once proclaimed his favorite – seems appropriate for Earth Day. |
| "There's the progress we have found: a way to talk around the problem. Building towered foresight Isn't anything at all. Buy the sky and sell the sky. And tell the sky, don't fall on me." |
| LISTEN WHILE YOU WORK: You can hear just about every song quoted in the newsletter on the Daily Money Mood Music playlist on Spotify. |
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