This week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed new rules to crack down on the payday loan industry. Store-front lenders promising easy money are a familiar sight in poor neighborhoods, and nationwide, about 12 million Americans spend more than $7 billion on payday loans each year. Payday loans offer quick access to cash when banks or credit unions can’t help, and the very poor who need the money often find they have no other recourse. But critics, among them church leaders, say the practice is predatory and forces debt on those who are least able to afford it. Now churches have started programs to help the poor escape their debt. Correspondent Lucky Severson reports from Birmingham, Alabama on lenders who target and trap the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"