Ghetto Tax: Higher Prices for Poorer Neighborhoods
Baltimore Sun: Poorer City Residents Pay More for Goods
In the Baltimore region, 31 percent of neighborhoods with family incomes below $30,000 had a bank or credit union, the fourth-lowest percentage among the areas studied, the report found. In contrast, 60 percent of Baltimore area neighborhoods with family incomes between $30,000 and $59,999 had a bank or credit union.
Fellowes said a $15,000-a-year Baltimore-area wage-earner could save $600 a year by going to a bank instead of relying on a check-casher, and that the same worker would save more than $400 a year in auto insurance if he or she lived in a high-income suburban community rather than a poor city neighborhood.
Bonnie Howard, a senior associate at the Casey Foundation, which works to improve the lives of disadvantaged children, said the issue of financial well-being was an “important element in the family-strengthening agenda.”
“The children who are most vulnerable are those who don’t have economic stability,” she said.
The Abell Foundation is funding a similar study that will take a more in-depth look just at Baltimore.
Tom Kertes, spokesman for the United Workers Association, which represents low-wage workers said he welcomed any attention to poverty but added the study’s conclusions are “not news to us.”
“We call it the ghetto tax,” he said.
