Community groups argue that if Otting gets his way, there will be more focus on how much banks spent on CRA-qualifying activities, as opposed to the quality of the investment and whether or not it would directly benefit low-income residents.

“I remember driving into Chicago from the east (coast), and it is just miles of Black neighborhoods,” Taylor recounted. “You go for miles when you live on the South Side without seeing White people, and when you do, you’re like ‘What are you doing here? Why are you here? What’s going on?’ And I wanted to understand why and how that happened.”

“For decades, economists had this view that burdens could quote-‘help’ separate out those that are what one calls truly disadvantaged versus those who might be more marginally needy,” said Hilary Hoynes, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of California, Berkeley. “Our current research suggests it could be exactly the opposite.”

Sauntore Thomas is reeling from a one-two punch. First, the Detroiter sued his employer alleging racial discrimination in a lawsuit that settled confidentially. Then he went to the bank this week to cash his settlement checks, but the Livonia bank refused to cash or deposit his checks.

The OCC charged five former Wells Fargo consumer banking and compliance officials with violating federal bank regulations and will seek to permanently ban them from the banking industry.

Regulators are arguing over the right metrics to use in crediting banks with CRA lending. But they are failing to ask the more fundamental question of whether increased debt is really the right way to help financially vulnerable families.

Ultimately, the lack of affordable housing across much of the country is a problem from which America can only build its way out. A functioning housing market where supply is allowed to meet demand is still a ways off.

Japanese Americans received reparations — a presidential apology and a $20,000 check — more than four decades after their captivity. African Americans have not.

Outstanding card borrowing has surpassed its pre-crisis peak, reaching a record of $880 billion at the end of September, according to the latest data from the New York Fed’s consumer credit panel.

Of all the predictors of a child’s health and development, neighborhood is among the most telling, new data show.

Long accused of being too soft, a U.S. bank regulator has surprised its critics with tough treatment of scandal-ridden lender Wells Fargo, culminating on Thursday in more than $58 million in fines against eight former executives at the bank.

“My takeaway message is that Maryland continues to be the most innovative state, but Maryland’s experience over 42 years with all-payer rate setting shows that there are still challenges to bringing down health care spending,” Kominski, the UCLA health policy scholar, told me. There’s one more shortcoming to note: Maryland’s reforms don’t do anything directly to address the problem of the uninsured.

Civil rights groups should not be required to write fantasy novels before asserting their rights under law.

Today, facial recognition technologies are receiving the brunt of the tech backlash, but focusing on them misses the point. We need to have a serious conversation about all the technologies of identification, correlation and discrimination, and decide how much we as a society want to be spied on by governments and corporations — and what sorts of influence we want them to have over our lives.