A new survey finds that African-Americans are much more likely than whites to be called by debt collectors, despite both groups reporting relatively equal levels of debt and repayment rates.
Think tank Demos and the NAACP Economic Department collaborated to survey moderate-income American households with some credit card debt for the study. The survey found that African-Americans weren’t any more likely than whites to be late on a payment, and they were also no more likely than whites to declare bankruptcy or get evicted.
It’s not clear exactly why debt collectors seem to be going after one race more than the other, but the study’s findings could be the result of one unfortunate reality: African-Americans tend to have lower credit scores than white Americans. And that gap got wider as a result of the financial crisis — subprime lenders were more likely to target African-Americans during the housing boom. Those loans, with higher interest rates, were more likely to default.
Read the Demos / NAACP survey here
Source: Huffington Post
