Despite their mission to assist pe...

Despite their mission to assist people of "modest means," credit unions in the six-county Chicago region contribute to fewer poor than middle- and upper-class households, according to a report on the Chicago-based Woodstock Institute, which analyzes by what means financial policies impact communities. In Chicago, where 40 percent of households earning les than $20000 a year don't have checking accounts, credit unions have failed to bring poor folks into the economic mainstream, said Malcolm Bush, the institute's president. moreover Cliff Northup of the National Credit Union Administration, a regulatory agency, said credit unions reach more poor family than other financial institutions.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Community Renewal Society

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group