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Reinvestment Alert 32 - Combating the Perilous State of Lower-Income Workers’ Retirement Assets: The Recently Reenacted Federal Saver’s Credit Provides a Modest Opportunity for Asset Building

July 24, 2007

Malcolm Bush and Nathan Paufve

 

The report documents the decline in personal savings rates while explaining the recent saving incentive for lower-income people created by the federal Pension Protection Act of 2006.  While the credit is a modest step in the right direction for providing lower-income people the level of incentives currently provided to middle- and upper-income people, the report recommends that it be made refundable to expand its benefits to all income qualified tax payers.

Reinvestment Alert 31 - Measuring the Provision of Banking Services for the Underbanked: Recommendations for a More Effective Community Reinvestment Act Service Test

May 07, 2007

Geoff Smith, Malcolm Bush, and Nathan Paufve

This alert examines the service test evaluations of Chicago area large banks and thrifts to determine what information on services is collected and analyzed during the test procedures and looks at how regulators use these data to assess service test performance. The alert also discusses the limitations of the available data and makes recommendations for steps that might be taken to improve the effectiveness of the service test performance evaluation.

Reinvestment Alert 30: U.S. Household Debt Levels Are Worrying No Matter How You Look at Them

April 24, 2006

Malcolm Bush and Jonah Katz

 

This alert analyses a variety of measures of debt to provide an overall sense of changes in U.S. household debt levels and the impact of those changes on different groups of families.  

Reinvestment Alert 29: Refund Anticipation Loan Usage Rates Negatively Impact the Asset Building Potential of the Earned Income Tax Credit

February 09, 2006

Tom Feltner

 

This report analyzes 2002 IRS tax return data to determine the impact of refund anticipation loan usage among EITC recipients in communities across Illinois. The report also calculates the total amount of EITC dollars spent on high cost tax preparation and refund anticipation loan products in these same areas.

Reinvestment Alert 28 - New Mortgage Pricing Data Sheds Light on Subprime Market

May 10, 2005

Geoff Smith

An analysis of new federal mortgage lending data confirms that high cost subprime lending tends to be concentrated in minority communities and to African American and Hispanic borrowers. Reinvestment Alert 28 is based on new 2004 HMDA data which includes pricing information for subprime loans.