NCRC

Commercial banks are closing branches around the country — more than 3,300 last year alone, a record high. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition says 14 percent of all operational U.S. bank branches closed between 2008 and 2020.

“If a business didn’t have a preexisting relationship with a lender, it was hard to get in with that lender,” said Jason Richardson, the director of research and evaluation at the advocacy organization National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

Speaking via webcast at the annual Just Economy conference of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell outlined many of the continuing challenges and answered many questions moderated by Jesse Van Tol, CEO of NCRC.

Powell spoke to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition ahead of the release of the Fed’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED) report later this month. He focused much of his message on how the Fed is working to improve outcomes for larger portions of the population.

“While the recovery is gathering strength, it has been slower for those in lower-paid jobs,” Powell said at a virtual event sponsored by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

According to a National Community Reinvestment Coalition study, Pittsburgh was the eighth-most gentrified city in the U.S. in 2019, with neighborhoods like Downtown, Lawrenceville, and the Mexican War Streets seeing the sharpest levels of gentrification.

“The economy is reopening, bringing stronger economic activity and job creation,” Powell said in remarks prepared for delivery at a conference of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicated his support for subjecting non-depository institutions to the Community Reinvestment Act, but said the final decision should be left to Congress.

“We are not out of the woods yet, but I am glad to say that we are now making real progress,” Powell said in remarks to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, citing rising vaccination levels, increased government support and more business reopenings across the country.

“While the recovery is gathering strength, it has been slower for those in lower-paid jobs,” he said at a National Community Reinvestment Coalition event on the “just economy.”

“Like activities should have like regulation,” Mr. Powell said, speaking to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a fair-lending advocacy group.

CSPAN covered Chair Powell’s speech at the 2021 Just Economy Conference live. 

Jesse Van Tol, chief executive of the fair lending group National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said the disparities show that banks failed to live up to a 44-year-old federal law that requires them to equitably serve all communities where they do business.

According to the study, “HOLC “Redlining” Maps: the persistent structure of segregation and economic inequality” conducted by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), 74 percent of the neighborhoods that were marked hazardous “eight decades ago are low-to-moderate income (LMI) today.”