As many of you are aware Pennsylvania law prohibits lenders from charging exorbitantly high interest and fees on small loans in Pennsylvania. In the last several years the payday lending industry which in other states regularly charges fees and interest of 300% or more has been lobbying the state legislature to offer similarly destructive financial products to Pennsylvania consumers. In our briefing paper Bankrupt by Design: Payday Lenders Target PA Working Families, we found that expanding this form of lending in Pennsylvania would cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars and result in the loss of good jobs from the state’s economy.
Earlier this week Pennsylvania state senator Jake Corman from Centre County attempted to get the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee to adopt a resolution that would authorize a study of payday lending in Pennsylvania. The broad coalition that has been working hard to protect consumers from this form of predatory finance was alarmed by the proposed study design which in addition to being rushed included feedback from the organization lobbying on behalf of the payday lenders but not members of the coalition raising concerns about the harm of this product.
Thanks to the efforts of Senators Rafferty, Vance, Stack, Williams, Boscola, Farnese, and Brewster the resolution did not get adopted!
You can bet the payday lenders and their lobbyists will be back so please don’t hesitate to reach out to these senators and thank them for standing up for working families!
Your legislative champions need to hear from you when they do good!