Gratitude

I try to sustain a sense of gratitude about the little things. We humans slip into taking things for granted very easily, I've found, but I've also noticed that life has a way of helping you out on this one if you keep your mind open.

I'm working on a community research project about the "unbanked." Yes, that is a real term - try Googling it and you'll be amazed at what comes up - to describe people who do not use the mainstream commercial banking system. An estimated ten million households are unbanked in the U.S. Many of these folks rely on check-cashing and payday loan businesses - currently, the fastest-growing segment of the financial services industry - which isn't bad, in and of itself, but the payday loan places in particular charge pretty astonishing fees (as you will have learned by now if you took my suggestion and Googled the unbanked).

On behalf of a local foundation concerned about this phenomenon, I've been surveying and talking with people who are excluded from the banking system. And let me tell you, it's a humbling reminder of how fortunate I am to have snagged a seat in middle class America. Having spent my entire professional career in the social sector, I am well aware of the fact that it's just damn hard to be poor. Every single aspect of life becomes more complicated when you're truly poor. But this project gives that realization yet another new angle.

You get a disability benefit from the government, which has caught up with the 21st century and started using debit cards for your monthly payment - which is great, except the debit card is from the state, it isn't drawn on any bank. So every single place you go, you get charged a buck fifty or two for withdrawing your money. And, because your account isn't on any bank, nobody will let you withdraw more than $100 at a time - which means you are forced to incur this fee over and over again. Plus, you get hit at the other end - when you live on a few hundred dollars a month, you need every last penny, but most ATMs won't let you withdraw less than $20. To get your last few dollars, you have to buy something at a store and ask for cash back. They get you coming and going.

I've talked with people who can't produce the proper forms of ID (leading me into the bowels of the US Patriot Act, and trust me folks, THAT's a place none of you want to go); with women fleeing domestic violence who cannot have a bank account because we live in a community property state, and any bank account becomes a way for an abusive spouse to trace your whereabouts; with identity theft victims who don't know how to fix the problem and are now blacklisted from opening any bank account until they repay what they "owe." I've heard about Muslim restrictions on earning or paying interest, people who literally wear their savings in gold to avoid accruing "too much" savings and losing their pension or food stamps, and the complex mathetical calculations required to determine the best deal on wiring money to Mexico.

There are two of us working on this project, each with analytically-oriented masters degrees and years of executive management under our belts, and we have found ourselves completely baffled by the answers to these seemingly simple questions: "What fees are charged for checking accounts at this bank?" and "How much do you charge for wiring money?"

Poor people aren't lacking in intelligence, after all. They just live at a margin where rules really, really matter - rules that most of us can afford to leave vague and fuzzy in the back of our mind. If my financial survival depended on figuring out this crap, I'd be wearing my savings account in the form of gold bangles too.

So, next time you visit your bank, or withdraw cash from an ATM - take a moment and be grateful for that simple privilege.