- Program Education
- Program Area Expanding Economic Opportunity
- Grant Amount $130,000
- Grant Period June 1, 2004–December 31, 2006
- Location Ann Arbor, MI, United States
- Geographic Focus Detroit
About this grant
Nearly 22 percent of low- and moderate-income families – more than 8.4 million families earning under $25,000 per year – do not have a bank account. This lack of access to mainstream financial services often results in severe consequences such as high costs charged for sub-prime financial services; restricted use of mainstream sources of credit; reduced values of government income transfer programs; and diminished effectiveness of work supports, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit.Funding will enable the University of Michigan Law School to conduct a study to determine financial services usage patterns in Detroit, Michigan. Specific goals of the study include analyzing how and why low- and moderate-income people in the Detroit metropolitan area use certain types of financial services; the costs and benefits of such services; and how such persons might respond to new types of cost-effective financial products tailored to their needs. Interviews – supplemented with telephone surveys – will be conducted among a randomly-selected group of 1,000 adult households. Findings will be widely disseminated in the academic community, among federal, state and local policymakers and in the financial services industry.