More than 31% of African American households in St. Louis, Missouri do not have a checking or savings account as compared to 1.1% of White households, says a new report by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC). The city’s racial disparity in banking is one of the highest in the country.
The report examined the number of households in the United States that do not have checking or savings accounts (unbanked) and the number of households that have a checking or savings account but use services like check chasing, pawn shops and payday loans (underbanked).
Of the nearly 8% of the households nationwide that are unbanked, 21.7% are African-American, it found.