Barriers to Youth Connections to Work: The Case of Young People in the Low-Income Neighborhood of Caju in Rio de Janeiro

This paper takes advantage of an unusually detailed family and youth survey conducted by the Institute for the Study of Work and Society (IETS) in Rio de Janeiro in the low-income community of Caju close to downtown Rio. It describes the weak educational background of Caju youth and some of the reasons for that weakness. The results emphasize the precarious nature of low-income youth's educational achievements and their attachment to the job market. They also demonstrate the wide variance in youth characteristics even in a single low-income neighborhood

A Global Survey of Community Reinvestment Laws: The Obligation of the Private Sector to Serve the Underserved in Several Countries

Summaries of the community reinvestment legislation in the United States, United Kingdom, Nigeria, Brazil, South Africa, India, Australia, and Canada

Blindfolded Into Debt: A Comparison of Credit Card Costs and Conditions at Banks and Credit Unions

This report analyzes the deceptive effect of credit card terms and conditions and how these terms and conditions massively raise the cost of using credit cards and contribute to rising levels of consumer debt

Closing the Gap Between Rights and Realities for Children and Youth in Urban Brazil: Reflections on a Brazilian Project to Improve Policies for Street Children

Describes the successful use of Children's Rights Councils to promulgate policies to help children who spend their days (and in many cases nights) on the streets. Examines use of data and networks as well as challenges such as securing youth involvement

Full Disclosure: Why Bank Transparency Matters

This report seeks to reinvigorate the debate on bank disclosure in the UK and to create a better understanding of why it should be demanded of banks. This analysis is carried out through detailed case studies comparing Charter One Bank in Chicago in the US where banks have disclosed local lending practices since 1975- with its parent company Royal Bank of Scotland in Manchester to review the level of information available and the impact that this has. To do this we evaluate the available information on small-business lending, bank branch availability and basic bank account opening in underserved areas of Manchester. Our analysis indicates that data on these factors is generally difficult to obtain, inconsistent, and in many cases incomplete

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

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 19: Community Development Banks Substantially Outscore Other Banks in Serving Low-Income and Minority Communities

Community development banks (CD banks) are banks that include in their mission the specific goal of serving underserved communities. Given this mission, they should score well, indeed better, than regular financial institutions on this service. Yet recently questions have been raised about whether community development banks, along with other kinds of community development financial institutions (CDFIs), have demonstrated their effectiveness. Specifically, the U.S. Treasury Department has in the last several years asserted that CDFIs have not produced evidence of effectiveness. Since 1996, the Treasury Department has been an important funder of CDFIs, so this criticism has very practical consequences for the level of federal funding for community development banks. It also has implications for the current federal review of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations, particularly the debate about whether the existing tripartite division of CRA examinations into lending, investment and service tests, should be maintained. Community development banks receive important investments from other banks that in turn receive credit under the investment test portion of CRA examinations. Many community reinvestment groups and some bankers suspect that the adoption of one proposal, the merging of the three tests into a lending test and a community development test, would diminish the importance of investment into CDFIs. There are several ways to measure the effectiveness of community development banks. However, the underlying premise about their utility is that some populations remain underserved by financial institutions. A recent and comprehensive analysis of community reinvestment from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University shows that while the percent of minority and lower income populations receiving home mortgage loans increased considerably between 1993 and 2000, muh of that increase was accounted for by subprime and government backed loans.4 While these loans reach populations that may not qualify for conventional financing, these loan products have disadvantages compared to conventional financing. A portion of subprime loans are very high cost, very high fee loans called predatory loans. The report goes on to assert that there is recent evidence that discriminatory practices still persist in the housing marketplace. It is clear, therefore, that some populations remain underserved by financial institutions. So the question is, do community development banks outperform their peers in serving these populations and if so, by how much

Reinvestment Alert 26: Banking on Bounced Checks

Bounce protection, a product that is regularly offered to many bank customers as a convenience, has turned into an excessively priced loan program, key features of which are hidden from consumers. This report analyzes the fee structure of bounce protection products offered by several major Chicago region banks

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

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

Workforce Development for Lower Income Working Women in the Chicago Region: The Research Background

The research describes: 1) Changing demography of target populations 2) Array and character of post-high school resources for workforce development 3) Local and national policy, practice, funding and advocacy issues 4) Recommendations for future priorities