And the Obama administration is certainly doing what it can to help out.  Even though a whopping 46 million Americans are now on food stamps, the Obama administration plans to give out large amounts of money to organizations that are able figure out ways to get even more people enrolled in the program….

Despite the historic rise in food stamp use, however, the Obama Administration believes not enough people are receiving food stamps who should be and is offering $75,000 grants to groups who devise “effective strategies” to “increase program participation” among those who have yet to sign up.

In fact, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says that if we can get even more Americans enrolled in the food stamp program, that will be a great way to “stimulate the economy“.

Of course JP Morgan just loves all of this.  The more people they have in the system the better.

Christopher Paton, the managing director of JP Morgan’s “Treasury Solutions” business, made the following statement about the “food stamp business” that his firm is engaged in during an interview with Bloomberg Television….

“This business is a very important business to JPMorgan. It’s an important business in terms of its size and scale…Right now, volumes have gone through the roof in the past couple of years. The good news, from JPMorgan’s perspective, is the infrastructure that we built has been able to cope with that increase in volume.”

You can see more of the interview with Paton in the video posted below….

As the interview above noted, more than 40 percent of all food stamp recipients in the United States actually have a job.

This is an exciting “growth area” for JP Morgan.  As the middle class continues to decline, the number of “the working poor” in America is exploding.

Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs.  Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.  This trend is perfect for JP Morgan because it means that the number of low income workers that are eligible for food stamps is going to keep increasing.

And what makes all of this even sadder is that JP Morgan has outsourced many of the customer service jobs for its food stamp program to India.

Yes, you read that correctly.

When Americans that can’t find a decent job need help with their food stamps there is a good chance that they will be talking to a customer service representative sitting in India.

Isn’t that crazy?

When ABC News confronted JP Morgan about this, JP Morgan would not tell ABC which states have customer service calls sent to India and which states have them handled inside the United States….

JP Morgan is the only one today still operating public-assistance call centers overseas. The company refused to say which states had calls routed to India and which ones had calls stay domestically. That decision, the company said, was often left up to the individual states.

But JP Morgan doesn’t just handle food stamps.  JP Morgan also issues child support debit cards in 15 states and unemployment insurance debit cards in 7 states.

Of course JP Morgan is not the only big bank involved in this kind of business.  Several others are also making money in massive quantities on the backs of the poor.

The following example comes from a Huffington Post article….

Shawana Busby does not seem like the sort of customer who would be at the center of a major bank’s business plan. Out of work for much of the last three years, she depends upon a $264-a-week unemployment check from the state of South Carolina. But the state has contracted with Bank of America to administer its unemployment benefits, and Busby has frequently found herself incurring bank fees to get her money.

To withdraw her benefits, Busby, 33, uses a Bank of America prepaid debit card on which the state deposits her funds. She could visit a Bank of America ATM free of charge. But this small community in the state’s rural center, her hometown, does not have a Bank of America branch. Neither do the surrounding towns where she drops off her kids at school and attends church.

She could drive north to Columbia, the state capital, and use a Bank of America ATM there. But that entails a 50 mile drive, cutting into her gas budget. So Busby visits the ATMs in her area and begrudgingly accepts the fees, which reach as high as five dollars per transaction. She estimates that she has paid at least $350 in fees to tap her unemployment benefits.

There is something about all of this that just seems very, very wrong.

When we have good jobs, the big banks hit us with outrageous bank fees and they try to get us enslaved to credit card debt.

When we are down on our luck and become dependent on the government, the big banks still find ways of making money at our expense.

Why do the banksters always seem to win and we always seem to lose?

The post Making Money On Poverty: JP Morgan Makes Bigger Profits When The Number Of Americans On Food Stamps Goes Up appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

When I was growing up, I remember how banks would bend over backwards to get your business.  The customer service was generally very good and banks were not gouging us with ridiculous fees.

But now thousands of smaller banks have been gobbled up by the banking giants and things have dramatically changed.  The big banks don’t value us anymore.  They seem to believe that they have a “captive audience” and that they can treat us however they want to.

Well, it is time for us to draw a line in the sand.

We didn’t mind so much that they were paying us next to nothing on our savings accounts.

We didn’t say too much when ATM fees soared into the stratosphere.  For example, the average cost of using an “out of network” ATM in America today is approximately $3.81.

We didn’t even object too much when they started charging us fees for things such as getting paper statements, receiving wire transfers, or closing our accounts.

But now they have really crossed the line.

On October 1st, new federal regulations went into effect that capped what banks can charge merchants for debit card transactions.

The average fee on a debit card transaction used to be about 44 cents.

The new federal regulations cap the fee on merchants at 21 cents.

So will banks be unable to make money under these new regulations?

Well, according to U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, each debit card transaction costs the banks somewhere between 4 and 12 cents.

So a cap of 21 cents is not going to kill the banks.

However, it is going to hurt the profits that they have been making.  The new rules are expected to reduce total bank revenue by a whopping $6.6 billion a year.

Ouch.

So what are the big banks doing about it?

Well, they have decided to recoup that revenue by sticking it to us.

For example, Bank of America recently announced that it is about to start charging a $5 per month debit card fee.

This has sparked a firestorm of criticism.

Even members of Congress are getting involved.

According to ABC News, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate this week holding up a plastic debit card and launched into a tirade about Bank of America….

“Bank of America customers, vote with your feet, get the heck out of that bank,” Durbin said on the Senate floor. “Find yourself a bank or credit union that won’t gouge you for $5 a month and still will give you a debit card that you can use every single day. What Bank of America has done is an outrage.”

But that is not the only outrageous fee that you will be hit with at Bank of America.

If you want to get a basic checking account at Bank of America you will be slapped with a $12 monthly fee unless you maintain an average balance of at least $1,500.

Other large banks are instituting debit card fees as well.

Starting in November, SunTrust will be hitting account holders with a $5 per month debit card fee.

Last February, J.P. Morgan began testing a $3 per month debit card fee in Wisconsin.

Wells Fargo has also been testing a $3 per month debit card fee in certain markets.

But it is not just new debit card fees that are getting people upset.

For example, according to CNN large numbers of Citibank account holders will soon be paying a 15 or 20 dollar monthly fee if they do not maintain very high balances in their accounts….

Starting in December, customers who hold its mid-level Citibank Account will be charged $20 a month if they fail to maintain a minimum balance of $15,000 in their combined accounts. Previously, account holders had to carry a minimum balance of $6,000.

At the same time, customers who have the bank’s EZ Checking account will start being charged $15 a month if they don’t carry a minimum balance of $6,000.

They know that the vast majority of American families cannot afford to keep $6,000 sitting around.

It almost seems like the big banks are trying to eliminate as many small accounts as they can.

In the old days, virtually anyone could get a free checking account, but now all that has changed.

Sadly, the era of the free checking account seems to be ending.  According to a recent survey by bankrate.com, only 45 percent of all checking accounts in the United States that don’t pay interest are still free.  Two years ago that figure was sitting at 76 percent.

All over the nation, monthly fees on checking accounts are absolutely soaring.  In 2010, the average monthly fee on non-interest checking accounts was $2.49.  Today, the average monthly fee on non-interest checking accounts is $4.37.

It is almost as if the banks don’t even care about our money anymore.  They don’t want to give us free checking, they don’t want to send us paper statements, they don’t want us to use tellers and they don’t even want to treat us with common decency.

The truth is that we are the ones that deserve some compensation for all of the lousy service that we have been receiving.  For example, the Bank of America online banking system has been down for five days in a row.

The average American family is barely scraping by right now and cannot afford all of these outrageous fees.  Right now, economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating and millions more Americans are falling into poverty every year.  It is absolutely disgusting that these big banks are trying to drain hundreds of extra dollars a year out of each of us.

Well, perhaps we need to start voting with our feet.  We need to tell the banksters that we don’t want their stinking bank fees and that we are switching banks.

There are lots of credit unions and small community banks that would be more than happy to have us as customers.  Yes, banking with them might not be quite as “convenient”, but the big banks have pushed us way too far this time.

These new bank fees are beyond outrageous.

We cannot allow them to do this to us.

So do you have a story about how your current bank is abusing you?  Are you completely frustrated with the big banks? Please feel free to share your thoughts below….

The post Bank Fees? Let’s Tell The Banksters That We Don’t Want Their Stinking Bank Fees And That We Are Switching Banks appeared first on The Economic Collapse.