The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) final rule to remove medical bills from most credit reports will prohibit credit reporting companies like Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian from sharing medical debt information with lenders as well as barring lenders from considering these medical debts in underwriting decisions.
AFREF, in partnership with Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, has released a report on the need for increased affordable housing to enhance local economies. Pension funds, which collectively hold over $7.8 trillion, can invest in such housing to address the crisis and support working families, while also fulfilling their fiduciary duties.
The proposed acquisition of Discover by Capital One would create the sixth-largest bank in the United States, with $624 billion in domestic assets. This transaction fails to meet the public interest conditions under the Bank Merger Act that directs banking regulators to reject mergers, like the Capital One-Discover transaction, that fail to further the convenience and needs of communities.
The proposed Capital One takeover of Discover would create a mammoth bank that would undermine competition, raise prices, and harm consumers. The merger would create the biggest credit card lender — holding nearly one-third of credit card loans to consumers with non-prime credit scores — and put Capital One in a position to use its market power to raise prices on virtually captive consumers.
AFREF, in partnership with the Institute for Policy Studies, has released a report on the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act’s $39 billion in subsidies for semiconductor manufacturing, and specifically on the Biden administration’s decision to grant preferential treatment in the awarding of these subsidies to firms that agree to forgo all stock buybacks for five years.
AFREF, in partnership with Capital Strategies for the Common Good, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, and Bargaining for the Common Good, have produced a report highlighting how, in recent decades, housing has become increasingly commodified and financialized, while tenants in communities across the country are being crushed under unsustainable rent burdens and a shortage of affordable housing.