Fourteen states prohibit payday financing, calling it predatory. The government is stepping in, too. However for people who require the cash, there are few choices.
A trio of outsized blue guitars mounted on a telegraph pole face onto the fertile farmlands of the Mississippi Delta at a highway junction outside town. In blues mythology, this crossroads is The Crossroads, where guitar player Robert Johnson traded their heart into the devil for musical genius. Today it is a stoplight on Highway 61, a sun-baked strip of discount malls, filling stations, fast-food joints – and half dozen stores providing quick money..
For Jennifer Williams, a high-school instructor, it is a strip of debt and pity and heartache. For many years, she’d invest every payday store that goes shop, wanting to maintain repayments, even while sliding deeper into debt. Read More