Woodstock Institute - Keeping Current - reports credit unions fail to reach poor people - Brief Article

Chicago Reporter, The, April, 2002 by Ellyn Ong, Sarah Karp, Audra Martin

Despite their mission to serve people of "modest means," credit unions in the six-county Chicago region serve fewer poor than middle- and upper-class households, according to a report by the Chicago-based Woodstock Institute, which analyzes how financial policies impact communities. In Chicago, where 40 percent of households earning less than $20,000 a year don't have checking accounts, credit unions have failed to bring poor people into the economic mainstream, said Malcolm Bush, the institute's president.

But Cliff Northup of the National Credit Union Administration, a regulatory agency, said credit unions reach more poor people than other financial institutions.