Last month, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan, the boldest economic relief package since President Roosevelt’s New Deal nearly a century ago. For many, the most notable portion of the package included another round of economic impact payments and an expanded child tax credit that will put desperately needed cash into most Americans’ pockets.
But there is some bad news. For the third time in a year, a massive coronavirus relief bill has laid bare the systemic predation and economic exclusion embedded within our nation’s banking and financial system. A system that has left behind millions of Americans solely because they don’t have access to a bank account.
We believe that unless this nation embraces the use of public banks, this financial exclusion will only worsen for the millions of unbanked and underbanked Americans already suffering during this pandemic.