It was a slow afternoon at Check Center, the check casher/payday lender in a storefront on a busy corner in downtown Berkeley, Calif., where I worked as a teller. My manager, Joe, and I were both dressed in red polo [...]

People who do not have access to the mainstream financial system are subject to a variety of fees for services that the rest of us either get for free or at negligible prices. According to Jonathan Mintz, founding President and [...]

When her son, Cole, came home from his first day of kindergarten at a public school in San Francisco two years ago, Lauren Sigurdson, a single mom who struggles to pay basic expenses, found a welcome surprise tucked in his [...]