The United States has two separate banking systems today—one serving the well-to-do and another exploiting everyone else. How the Other Half Banks contributes to the growing conversation on American inequality by highlighting one of its prime causes: unequal credit. Mehrsa Baradaran examines how a significant portion of the population, deserted by banks, is forced to wander through a Wild West of payday lenders and check-cashing services to cover emergency expenses and pay for necessities—all thanks to deregulation that began in the 1970s and continues decades later.

“Baradaran argues persuasively that the banking industry, fattened on public subsidies (including too-big-to-fail bailouts), owes low-income families a better deal…How the Other Half Banks is well researched and clearly written…The bankers who fully understand the system are heavily invested in it. Books like this are written for the rest of us.”
—Nancy Folbre, New York Times Book Review

“How the Other Half Banks tells an important story, one in which we have allowed the profit motives of banks to trump the public interest.”
—Lisa J. Servon, American Prospect

Prizes

Nominated for Pulitzer Prizes 2016,Nominated for James Willard Hurst Prize 2016,Nominated for J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize 2016,Nominated for Sidney Hillman Prize for Book Journalism 2016,Nominated for Alice Hanson Jones Prize 2016,Nominated for Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 2015

Mehrsa Baradaran is Professor of Law at UCI Law and a celebrated authority on banking law. In addition to the prizewinning The Color of Money, she is author of How the Other Half Banks. She has advised US senators and representatives on policy and spoken at national and international forums including the World Bank.