The Relationship Between Banks and the Poor

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Banks charge $11 billion in over-draft fees each year. Only about 9% of account holders pay most of those fees, like over 80% of those fees. Wealthy Americans benefit because banks can profit from the excessive fees paid by people with less money. Our free accounts are subsidized by these overdraft fees or take credit cards.

RUFUS GRISCOM: Could you share with us your broader mission and how your new book, “Poverty, by America,” supports that mission?

MATTHEW DESMOND: I want to end poverty. I want to be part of the movement that’s growing around the country not to treat it but to cure it, not to reduce it but to abolish it. And I say that because we can. We can, as a country, put an end to all this scarcity and deprivation in our midst.