Lisa Servon is Professor of City Planning at the University of Pennsylvania and former dean at The New School. She is the author of The Unbanking of America: How the New Middle Class Survives (2017), Bridging the Digital Divide: Technology, Community, and Public Policy(Blackwell 2002), Bootstrap Capital: Microenterprises and the American Poor (Brookings 1999), Gender and Planning: A Reader (With Susan Fainstein, Rutgers University Press 2005), and Otra Vida es Posible: Practicas Economicas Alternativas Durante la Crisis (With Manuel Castells, Joana Conill, Amalia Cardenas and Sviatlana Hlebik. UOC Press 2012). She has contributed to the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and The Wall Street Journal and has appeared on PBS News Hour, Marketplace Money and Radio Times and her research is featured in the forthcoming documentary Spent: Looking for Change. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, two children, and a dog named Friday.
This report focuses on two specific aspects of economic trends: rising income volatility and health care needs, and the role of credit unions in reducing the negative impacts of income volatility.
Credit unions have an opportunity to differentiate by providing inclusive financial services to the un/underbanked, with lessons from alternative financial services providers like payday lenders.
This research exposes the growing financial challenges affecting justice-involved citizens and provides guidance for credit unions wanting to take concrete...
