Skip to content
Subscriber Only
Markets
Economics

America’s Middle Class Is Addicted to a New Kind of Credit

  • Online installment loans have taken subprime market by storm
  • It’s not a payday advance, but critics see same pitfalls
RF credit cards wallet

Source: Getty Images

Christopher Maloney and Adam Tempkin
Updated on

Explore what’s moving the global economy in the new season of the Stephanomics podcast. Subscribe via Pocket Cast or iTunes.

The payday-loan business was in decline. Regulators were circling, storefronts were vanishing and investors were abandoning the industry’s biggest companies en masse.