Category Archives: Press Releases

a student with books - Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

Statement: Student loan suspension extension gives millions another month of certainty, but more needs to be done

In October, AFR joined 76 other organizations to call on Secretary DeVos to extend the federal student loan suspension. We are glad that Secretary DeVos has heeded this call, extending the suspension through the end of January 2021. But we still need a long term solution. We look forward to seeing the incoming Biden administration extend the federal student loan suspension even further, ensure all federal student loan borrowers are covered, and provide crucial relief to millions by cancelling federal student debt via executive action.

News Release: Yellen Nomination Creates Potential for Ambitious Financial Reform Agenda

The Treasury Secretary has the authority to drive an ambitious agenda for economic, racial, and climate justice, and to use financial regulation as an important tool of that work. As Yellen has herself noted in recent remarks, this moment of crisis has made it particularly clear that a new administration needs to not only undo the dangerous Trump administration deregulation of Wall Street, but also move well beyond the preceding status quo.

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News Release: Durable Support for Tough Wall Street Rules and Mission of CFPB

Ten years after Congress passed a major reform of Wall Street in response to the financial crisis voters overwhelmingly support more and tougher regulation of finance and they strongly approve of the mission of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And, as the decade after the 2008 crisis unfolded to reveal continuing abuses by Wall Street, and the growth of predatory financial practices, notably by private equity, the public’s appetite for additional reform has strengthened. And the results underscore the need for rigorous oversight to ensure consumers aren’t victimized by unscrupulous lending practices.

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Polling Memo: Voters Support Strong Consumer Financial Protections and Tough Regulation of Wall Street

Voters across all political parties are broadly and intensely supportive of strong consumer financial protections and of tough regulation of the financial services industry. This sentiment extends not only to keeping existing measures in place but expanding on what Congress did a decade ago, and has proved durable throughout the period since the 2008 financial crisis, through the weak recovery that followed and into the searing recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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photo of a student borrower looking sadly at the sky - Photo by Matese Fields on Unsplash

Statement: AFR Applauds Schumer, Warren Resolution Calling on Trump to Cancel Student Debt

We applaud Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Resolution calling on the Trump Administration to cancel student debt. Cancelling student debt will provide both immediate financial relief to millions of Americans, and crucial economic stimulus for everyone during this protracted crisis — boosting GDP and job creation at a time of intense labor shocks and economic contraction.

News Release: Senate Pandemic Relief Bill Would Weaken Key Safeguard Against Financial Crisis

A provision inserted by Sen. Mike Crapo, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, would encourage Trump-appointed regulators, who have already sought to reduce the minimum amounts of their own risk capital that banks have to hold during the COVID-19 pandemic, to go further. Sen. Susan Collins, sponsor of the part of Dodd-Frank in 2010 that Crapo wants to gut, has already filed an amendment that would strike the part of Republican bill that would make this change. The Senate should follow her lead and preserve minimum statutory thresholds for bank capital.

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News Release: Private equity-backed nursing homes do worse during pandemic for residents and staff

Private equity-owned and -backed nursing homes had higher COVID-19 infection and fatality rates for residents, and those same facilities had a disproportionate share of the COVID-19 resident and staff cases and deaths relative to public, non-profit, and other for-profit nursing homes in New Jersey, according to a new report from Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF).

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