Report to the Chicago Woman’s Club, The Chicago Association of Collegiate Alumnae and the Woman’s City Club

Contributors: Sophonisba P. Breckinridge and Edith Abbott, directors of the Department of Social Investigation, the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, and Anne S. Davis, special investigator for the Chicago Woman’s Club, the Chicago Association of Collegiate Alumnae, and the Woman’s City Club

“Working hard and playing by the rules still casts aside millions. Credit Where It’s Due tells the inspiring story of the Mission Asset Fund’s pathway to belonging and financial citizenship. Inspired and well crafted, this book builds the case for making and illuminates how to make citizenship, immigrant integration, and democracy work for organizations, advocates, and anybody committed to building a better society.”
—THOMAS M. SHAPIRO, director and David R. Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy, Institute on Assets and Social Policy, The Heller School, Brandeis University

“Credit Where It’s Due is an original and masterful examination that goes well beyond the crowded scholarly field of finance and economic exploitation to document the ways in which systems of finance stratify society in areas as basic as human decency, belonging, and recognition. But, far from simply a doom and gloom story, the book presents financial alternatives grounded in the depth of contemporary personal narratives of how finance can be dignity affirming and structured to empower rather than socially degrading and exploitive. This book will advance the field in profound ways.”
—DARRICK HAMILTON, executive director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, The Ohio State University

An estimated 45 million adults in the U.S. lack a credit score at time when credit invisibility can reduce one’s ability to rent a home, find employment, or secure a mortgage or loan. As a result, individuals without credit—who are disproportionately African American and Latino—often lead separate and unequal financial lives. Yet, as sociologists and public policy experts Frederick Wherry, Kristin Seefeldt, and Anthony Alvarez argue, many people who are not recognized within the financial system engage in behaviors that indicate their credit worthiness. How might institutions acknowledge these practices and help these people emerge from the financial shadows? In Credit Where It’s Due, the authors evaluate an innovative model of credit-building and advocate for a new understanding of financial citizenship, or participation in a financial system that fosters social belonging, dignity, and respect.

Wherry, Seefeldt, and Alvarez tell the story of the Mission Asset Fund, a San Francisco-based organization that assists mostly low and moderate-income people of color with building credit. The Mission Asset Fund facilitates zero-interest lending circles, which have been practiced by generations of immigrants, but have gone largely unrecognized by mainstream financial institutions. Participants decide how the circles are run and how they will use their loans, and the organization reports their clients’ lending activity to credit bureaus. As the authors show, this system not only helps clients build credit, but also allows them to manage debt with dignity, have some say in the creation of financial products, and reaffirm their sense of social membership. The authors delve into the history of racial wealth inequality in the U.S. to show that for many black and Latino households, credit invisibility is not simply a matter of individual choices or inadequate financial education. Rather, financial marginalization is the result of historical policies that enabled predatory lending, discriminatory banking and housing practices, and the rollback of regulatory protections for first-time homeowners.

To rectify these inequalities, the authors propose common sense regulations to protect consumers from abuse alongside new initiatives that provide seed capital for every child, create affordable short-term loans, and ensure that financial institutions treat low- and moderate income clients with equal respect. By situating the successes of the Mission Asset Fund in the larger history of credit and debt, Credit Where It’s Due shows how to prioritize financial citizenship for all.

FREDERICK F. WHERRY is professor of sociology at Princeton University.

KRISTIN S. SEEFELDT is associate professor of social work and associate professor of public policy at the University of Michigan.

ANTHONY S. ALVAREZ is assistant professor of sociology at California State University, Fullerton.

“The prevailing view holds that union power and unreasonable demands by workers are responsible for the decline of the U.S. auto industry. In this compellingly argued study, Murray and Schwartz challenge that narrative. The problem, Wrecked lucidly argues, is not workers’ actual power. The root of the problem is that U.S. manufacturers are totally unwilling to form a social contract with workers and their unions, choosing total company control despite the fact that means increased costs and decreased flexibility. Anyone interested in reviving U.S. manufacturing needs to read this book.”
—DAN CLAWSON, professor of sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

“It’s almost a truism to lay the decline of the American auto industry at the feet of the trade union movement—for demanding too much, not working hard enough, and in so doing, reducing the competitiveness of the Big Three automakers. But in this brilliant book, Josh Murray and Michael Schwartz place the blame back where it belongs—on the managers and owners and their investment decisions. Whereas Japanese competitor firms based their production model on increasing labor productivity, the Big Three turned increasingly to a low-wage, low-cost model—which quickly lost ground to rival producers. The result has been nothing short of catastrophic for millions of workers in the heartland of American manufacturing. Wrecked sets the record straight. It will take its place as a classic in economic sociology.”
—VIVEK CHIBBER, professor of sociology, New York University

At its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, automobile manufacturing was the largest, most profitable industry in the United States and residents of industry hubs like Detroit and Flint, Michigan had some of the highest incomes in the country. Over the last half-century, the industry has declined, and American automakers now struggle to stay profitable. How did the most prosperous industry in the richest country in the world crash and burn? In Wrecked, sociologists Joshua Murray and Michael Schwartz offer an unprecedented historical sociological analysis of the downfall of the auto industry. Through an in-depth examination of labor relations and the production processes of automakers in the U.S. and Japan both before and after World War II, they demonstrate that the decline of the American manufacturers was the unintended consequence of their attempts to weaken the bargaining power of their unions.

Today Japanese and many European automakers produce higher quality cars at lower cost than their American counterparts thanks to a flexible form of production characterized by long-term sole suppliers, assembly and supply plants located near each other, and just-in-time delivery of raw materials. While this style of production was, in fact, pioneered in the U.S. prior to World War II, in the years after the war, American automakers deliberately dismantled this system. As Murray and Schwartz show, flexible production accelerated innovation but also facilitated workers’ efforts to unionize plants and carry out work stoppages. To reduce the efficacy of strikes and combat the labor militancy that flourished between the Depression and the postwar period, the industry dispersed production across the nation, began maintaining large stockpiles of inventory, and eliminated single sourcing. While this restructuring of production did ultimately reduce workers’ leverage, it also decreased production efficiency and innovation. The U.S. auto industry has struggled ever since to compete with foreign automakers, and formerly thriving motor cities have suffered the consequences of mass deindustrialization.

Murray and Schwartz argue that new business models that reinstate flexible production and prioritize innovation rather than cheap labor could stem the outsourcing of jobs and help revive the auto industry. By clarifying the historical relationships between production processes, organized labor, and industrial innovation, Wrecked provides new insights into the inner workings and decline of the U.S. auto industry.

JOSHUA MURRAY is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University.

MICHAEL SCHWARTZ is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University.

This 1910 pamphlet presents a list of various social movement agencies or organizations with a brief statement of their purposes and plans, with the aim of promoting acquaintance and working together. Prepared by the Charity Organization Deaprtment of the Russell Sage Foundation.

A study of food conservation efforts as documented across exhibits and demonstrations at state, district, and county fairs in the United States, focusing on efforts to conserve wheat and fats.

EVART G. ROUTZAHN was associate director of the Department of Surveys and Exhibits at the Russell Sage Foundation.

MARY SWAIN ROUTZAHN was director of the Department of Social Work Interpretation at the Russell Sage Foundation. 

This report details the American Red Cross's operations through the China Famine Relief, from its inception in 1920 to the closing of  offices in 1921.

Donald S. Howard was assistant director of the Charity Organization Department of the Russell Sage Foundation.

Part of the Occasional Papers series, this pamphlet details the American Relief Administration's planning and administering of relief in Russia between 1921 and 1923.

H. H. Fisher was a member of the American Relief Administration.

A 1910 pamphlet published by the Charity Organization Department of the Russell Sage Foundation explaining the work and aims of associated charities and their role in society.

This history covers the first forty years of Russell Sage Foundation's efforts toward "the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States of America." It records the things that were done, both as direct work and through grants, with considerable attention to the social situation which made them seen necessary or desirable. It is of value not only to those interested in the operation of the Russell Sage Foundation or other foundatons, but for the light it throws upon the origins and development of a wide variety of movements in the borad field of social science.

A 1946 report suggesting how statistical research can be applied to better understand professional education and the structure and function of professional associations.

ESTHER LUCILE BROWN was director of the Department of Studies in the Professions at the Russell Sage Foundation.