Payday Loan Unemployment Blues

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

A story in today's Times gives the latest on payday loans: the loansharks are taking your unemployment checks as proof of income.

A quick snip:

Most unemployed borrowers, she said, come in twice a month and often appear more desperate than other clients.

"They need it more," she said. "When we tell them they need to wait because they forgot their checkbook or some other snag, you see a sadness in their eyes, kind of like it's all piling up, the frustration."

That's lovely and generous and all (sharing is caring!), but can we just admit Gavin Newsom is awesome and make him be Lt. Gov., please? His San Francisco is now offering payday loans of its own to its needier citizens, and minus the 4 million percent annualized interest. (Okay, 4 million was a lie; for-profit cash advances charge ONLY 400 percent. And check out how happy consumers are with such caring folks as CashCall!)

I don't have anything against Janice Hahn, who's running for lieutenant governor, except that I got a rather ugly telephone survey from her pollsters, and wrote about it. The next time they called, their first question was whether I was employed as a journalist or a political campaigner. When I answered yes, the first question became the last. Thank you for your time, and have a nice day! 

I know Gavin's kinda flakey, and most likely kinda vain, but the city of San Francisco is actually solving hairy social problems for its citizens, from the aforementioned payday loans to city-run health insurance. There's some visionary stuff going on up there. What has Janice Hahn does for us lately?

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