The Promised Land for payday lenders seems to be nothing less than the American Bible Belt.
A new study, to be published this spring at the Catholic University Law Review, has found the conservative Christian right to be the majority population of americas led by the payday loan industry, an issue unlikely to please the man first floor.
“What’s interesting and surprising to us is that we have found a strong correlation between the number of payday lenders within a geographic area and the political power of conservative Christians within a state,” Professor Christopher Peterson, one of the authors of the study, told Newsweek. “The hypothesis would have been natural to assume that, given the biblical condemnation of usury, there would be no regulation aggressive and less demand for payday loans in the types of statements. I think it’s ironic that actually found the opposite tends to be true. ”
A payday loan, also known as payday advance is a short-term loan only large enough to cover expenses of a borrower until his next paycheck. The loans generally do not exceed $ 500, but may have exorbitant interest rates. Despite that often seem less outrageous for a single loan, when over a year, nationally rates ranging from 156% in Oregon to an unholy 869% in Maine and Montana, such as detailed in the Community Financial Services Association of americas.
The CFSA, however, refuses to depredando pious. Darrin Andersen, president of the organization, has asked that the findings “ridiculous”, arguing that the approximately 19 million U.S. homes using payday loans per year can not be grouped based on race or religion.
But the study, “usury and the Law of the Christian Right,” which is something else. After mapping payday lenders nationwide, the largest concentration is directly in line with pockets of americas conservative Christianity, namely the Bible Belt, followed by the Mormon West. The authors ran tests against various demographic groups, including those living below the poverty line and minority population. A clear pattern emerged in the case of the Christian right, suggesting that the great believers equal big business for the money-lending industry.
The CFSA is not precisely the fear of a repeat of the Crusades, however. The association has been a target of Peterson and co-author Steven Graves before, and puts little faith in his scholarship, citing its decision to exclude the study of California, a state where almost 20% of payday lender are the stores.
CFSA representatives, who have yet to hear from Christian leaders, have their clients to dismiss the findings: “The study is being ridiculed for not making a direct correlation, but instead of speculating. It is a very poorly constructed and presented ’study ‘, “Said Lyndsey Medsker, a spokeswoman for the group. “Instead of empirically identify people of faith, which builds a ‘Christian indicators of Power” and compares the number of payday advance places with cafes and fast food restaurants. ”
She has no hesitation in turning the tables on his accusers industry: “In fact, the study implies that Christians are irrational and somehow being cheated or mislead in payday advances through.”
