Nebraska voters have chosen to cap payday loan interest rates.  Ballot box Initiative 428 limits the annual percentage rate on payday loans at 36%. A Nebraska Department of Banking report indicates that the average annual percentage rate on payday loans in Nebraska is 405%. However, according to Thomas Aiello of the National Taxpayer Union, the cap on interest rates would actually hurt low-income Nebraskans by denying them access to credit. This is an onerous rule…

Financial writer Liz Weston (@LizWeston) writes that many people who could benefit from bankruptcy don’t file because of fear and misplaced optimism.  See Fear of Bankrutpcy Holds Too Many People Back. This is the second time that Liz Weston has suggested that more people consider filing bankruptcy (Do Debt Management Plans Work?), and this is notable since she is something of a financial guru with a long track record of…

A new report entitled Understanding Evictions in Omaha written by Creighton University professors Pierce Greenberg and and Gary Fischer outline the devastating impact evictions have on the Omaha community. Evictions cause a loss of “social and community capital.”  High eviction rates are related to increasing crime rates and cause poor educational performance in schools. They cause a severance of supporting relationships that exist in all neighborhoods and can set off a cycle of social destruction…

COVID-19 is a wrecking ball destroying small Nebraska businesses, but at some point the medical crisis will end and the debt crisis will take off. So far the damage has been mitigated by programs such as the Paycheck Protection Plan, but business revenues have dropped dramatically and consumer spending is not likely to return any time soon. Emergency funds have been depleted, worker layoffs have been instituted, but fixed expenses for rent and loan…

The COVID-19 virus has caused millions of Americans to file unemployment claims, and the federal government has increased state unemployment benefits by $600 per week though July 2020. May a creditor garnish unemployment benefits in Nebraska? Nebraska Statute 48-647 states that “benefits received by any individual, so long as they are not mingled with other funds of the recipient, shall be exempt from any remedy for the collection of all debts, except debts incurred for…

An email from a new client: Hi Sam! Thank you for your time yesterday. A few quick questions for you. After my case is filed, and everything goes through, how long does it take for my credit to repair/refresh? What are most of your clients seeing? Can I expect to have an industry average credit score within 3 years? Credit comes back in phases. Right now his credit is in the gutter and the score…