The CFPB released a report this week that should serve as a reminder of what a functional Congress could accomplish. The report highlights the ways in which the 2009 Credit CARD Act has succeeded. Their findings:

The student loan default rate is soaring, and it's flying highest among for-profit schools. The U.S. Department of Education reports that across the nation, the share of borrowers who default within two years after college loan payments become due has risen nearly a full percentage point to 10

For some recent college graduates, this fall’s back-to-school season marks the beginning of the back-to-living-at-home stage of their lives. But with careful financial planning, that stage doesn’t have to last long, advisers say.

So much has been accomplished by Occupy and other social justice movements in the past two years that it is incredible the corporate media and their pundits do not report on what is happening around them. Despite the lack of corporate media coverage, the movement is deepening, creating democratic

The American dream has become the American debt trap. During the economic downturn, millions of cash-strapped Americans relied on credit cards to pay unexpected medical bills or to weather unemployment. Now, in an economic recovery enjoyed mainly by the wealthy, ordinary Americans can’t earn enough

Like so many young Americans, Derek Wetherell is stuck. At 23 years old, he has a job, but not a career, and little prospect for advancement. He has tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, but no college degree. He says he is more likely to move back in with his parents than to buy a home, and

The labor market recovery remains fragile, especially for African-Americans.

The American middle class has been in trouble for decades, but this was not obvious until the recession of 2008 because consumer purchases held up. How was that possible? The simple answer is that financiers devised ways to loan money that severed the link between profits and middle-class wellbeing.

Seniors are getting squeezed in so many ways. Healthcare and other basic expenses are rising. Fewer have pensions to supplement their Social Security income in retirement. Low interest rates mean what savings they do have isn’t growing quickly — unless they are willing to invest in higher-risk

Right now, eager 18-year-olds from across the country are tweeting with bravado photos of their newly postered dorm rooms and scanning with private fear their freshmen class schedules. They're embarking on a journey to capture their piece of the American Dream.