[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




 
                      HOW INVIDIOUS DISCRIMINATION

                    WORKS AND HURTS: AN EXAMINATION
                    
                     OF LENDING DISCRIMINATION AND

                     ITS LONG-TERM ECONOMIC IMPACTS

                         ON BORROWERS OF COLOR

=======================================================================

                            VIRTUAL HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                           AND INVESTIGATIONS

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                           FEBRUARY 24, 2021

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

                            Serial No. 117-5
                            
                            
                            
  [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]           
  
  
  
  
                            ______                       
  
  
               U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 43-992 PDF            WASHINGTON : 2021 
  
  
  

                 HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                 MAXINE WATERS, California, Chairwoman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York         PATRICK McHENRY, North Carolina, 
NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York             Ranking Member
BRAD SHERMAN, California             FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York           BILL POSEY, Florida
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia                 BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
AL GREEN, Texas                      BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri            STEVE STIVERS, Ohio
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              ANN WAGNER, Missouri
JIM A. HIMES, Connecticut            ANDY BARR, Kentucky
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas
JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio                   FRENCH HILL, Arkansas
JUAN VARGAS, California              TOM EMMER, Minnesota
JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey          LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas              BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
AL LAWSON, Florida                   ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia
MICHAEL SAN NICOLAS, Guam            WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio
CINDY AXNE, Iowa                     TED BUDD, North Carolina
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee
AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts       TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana
RITCHIE TORRES, New York             ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts      JOHN ROSE, Tennessee
ALMA ADAMS, North Carolina           BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin
RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan              LANCE GOODEN, Texas
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania         WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York   VAN TAYLOR, Texas
JESUS ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas
NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia
JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, Massachusetts

                   Charla Ouertatani, Staff Director
              Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

                        AL GREEN, Texas Chairman

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri            ANDY BARR, Kentucky, Ranking 
ALMA ADAMS, North Carolina               Member
RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan              BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
JESUS ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois      ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia
SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas                 DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee
NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia             WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina, 
                                         Vice Ranking Member
                                         
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on:
    February 24, 2021............................................     1
Appendix:
    February 24, 2021............................................    31

                               WITNESSES
                      Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Cooper, Cheryl R., Analyst, Financial Economics Division, 
  Congressional Research Service.................................    12
Darity, William, Jr., Professor of Public Policy, African and 
  African-American Studies, and Economics, Duke University; and 
  Director, Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity...........     5
Espinoza, Frances, Executive Director, North Texas Fair Housing 
  Center.........................................................    10
Perry, Andre M., Senior Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program, the 
  Brookings Institution..........................................     9
Rice, Lisa, President and CEO, National Fair Housing Alliance 
  (NFHA).........................................................     7

                                APPENDIX

Prepared statements:
    Cooper, Cheryl R.............................................    32
    Darity, William, Jr..........................................    44
    Espinoza, Frances............................................    50
    Perry, Andre M...............................................    52
    Rice, Lisa...................................................    60

              Additional Material Submitted for the Record

Green, Hon. Al:
    Written statement of the Appraisal Institute.................    77
    Written statement of Engine..................................    79
    ``Financial Resilience Challenges During the Pandemic,'' 
      Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta............................   112
    ``Mortgage Prepayment, Race, and Monetary Policy,'' Federal 
      Reserve Bank of Boston.....................................   115
    GAO study, ``Fair Lending, Access, and Retirement Security...   196


                      HOW INVIDIOUS DISCRIMINATION

                    WORKS AND HURTS: AN EXAMINATION

                     OF LENDING DISCRIMINATION AND

                     ITS LONG-TERM ECONOMIC IMPACTS

                         ON BORROWERS OF COLOR

                              ----------                              


                      Wednesday, February 24, 2021

             U.S. House of Representatives,
                          Subcommittee on Oversight
                                and Investigations,
                           Committee on Financial Services,
                                                   Washington, D.C.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:05 p.m., via 
Webex, Hon. Al Green [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Green, Cleaver, Adams, 
Tlaib, Garcia of Illinois, Williams of Georgia; Barr, 
Loudermilk, Mooney, and Taylor.
    Ex officio present: Representative Waters.
    Chairman Green. The Oversight and Investigations 
Subcommittee will come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the subcommittee at any time. Also, without 
objection, members of the full Financial Services Committee who 
are not members of this subcommittee are authorized to 
participate in today's hearing.
    As a reminder, I ask all Members to keep themselves muted 
when they are not being recognized by the Chair to minimize 
disturbances while Members are asking questions of our 
witnesses. The staff has been instructed not to mute Members, 
except when a Member is not being recognized by the Chair and 
there is inadvertent background noise.
    Members are also reminded that all House rules relating to 
order and decorum apply to this remote hearing. And Members may 
only participate in only one remote proceeding at a time. If 
you are participating today, please keep your camera on, and if 
you choose to attend a different remote proceeding, please turn 
your camera off.
    If Members wish to be recognized during the hearing, please 
identify yourself by name to facilitate recognition by the 
Chair.
    The title of today's hearing is, ``How Invidious 
Discrimination Works and Hurts: An Examination of Lending 
Discrimination and Its Long-Term Economic Impacts on Borrowers 
of Color.''
    We will now move to opening statements, and, in so doing, I 
will recognize myself for 4 minutes for an opening statement, 
with the understanding that the Chair of the Full Committee, 
Chairwoman Waters, will be present at some point, and will 
receive 1 minute of the additional time that we have for 
opening statements.
    Friends, lie on a mortgage application to secure a loan, 
and you are likely to get caught and criminally prosecuted for 
mortgage fraud, with jail time as a consequence. Lie as a loan 
originator to deny a loan to a person of color, and you are not 
likely to get caught, and if you do get caught, a civil 
monetary fine is likely the consequence, and little more than 
the cost of doing business.
    H.R. 166, the Fair Lending for All Act, provides the best 
tool available--testing--to catch, prosecute, and deter these 
predatory criminal lenders.
    First, H.R. 166 would provide critical tools for detecting, 
ending, and sanctioning discrimination that would otherwise go 
undetected. It would deter the predatory lending that 
perpetuates race-based differences in wealth, asset 
accumulations, income, and financial security.
    There is no enforcement tool--some things bear repeating--
there is no enforcement tool with the utility of matched-pair 
testing. This is why H.R. 166 creates a dedicated Federal 
office within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), 
which would be charged with conducting such testing.
    Second, H.R. 166 would expand the Equal Credit Opportunity 
Act's (ECOA's) terms to expressly prohibit lending 
discrimination against LGBTQ+ persons.
    Finally, H.R. 166 would establish criminal penalties for 
lenders and lending officials who engage in knowing and willful 
discrimination in violation of ECOA.
    This concludes my opening statement.
    At this time, without objection, I would like to place in 
the record the following documents: a GAO report dated February 
24, 2021; a document styled, ``Financial Resilience Challenges 
During the Pandemic,'' which is an article from the Atlanta 
Federal Reserve Bank examining the history of discriminatory 
policies that leave many Black and Hispanic households less 
resilient in the face of economic shock caused by the pandemic; 
and a document styled, ``Mortgage Prepayment, Race, and 
Monetary Policy,'' a working paper from the Boston Federal 
Reserve Bank which finds that Black and Hispanic borrowers pay 
more than 50-basis-points-higher interest rates than White 
borrowers in a large representative sample of loans insured by 
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
    Without objection, it is so ordered.
    Having made my opening statement, it is now my honor to 
yield to the ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Barr, for 
5 minutes for his opening statement.
    Mr. Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you 
yielding, and I appreciate you holding today's hearing.
    Thank you also to our witnesses for appearing today.
    Discrimination in lending and other financial services is 
wrong, it is illegal, and it should not be tolerated. There is 
no room for compromise on that point.
    While discrimination is illegal, that does not mean that 
there are not large pockets of the population who continue to 
be left behind by our banking system. It is important that we 
review and address those problems holistically. Our discussion 
on the economic impacts of inequities in the financial system 
should extend to all unbanked and underbanked groups.
    Economic recovery is well under way in the wake of the 
COVID pandemic. Unfortunately, many Americans continue to 
struggle financially. The pandemic has exposed and exacerbated 
certain weaknesses in our financial system, highlighting how 
large portions of the population still have trouble accessing 
credit. Every American should have equal access to our 
financial system regardless of their race or gender, whether 
they live in urban or in rural America, or any other factor.
    One area of particular concern to me is the access to 
capital and other financial services in rural areas. According 
to a recent FDIC study, people in rural areas are more likely 
than their urban and suburban counterparts to visit a bank 
branch in person to do their banking. Unfortunately, the number 
of bank branches across the country continues to decrease, and 
the pace of de novo bank formation has slowed significantly 
compared to pre-financial crisis levels.
    As there has been a movement towards online banking, we 
know the challenges that rural Americans face with respect to 
rural broadband, and that is another impediment.
    There were 181 de novo charters granted in 2007, but 
between 2010 and 2019, an average of fewer than 10 new banks 
opened per year. A recent Federal Reserve study shows that 51 
percent of the 3,114 counties in the United States saw net 
declines in the number of bank branches between 2012 and 2017. 
These declines in bank branches disproportionately hit rural 
communities. A total of 794 rural counties lost a combined 
1,553 bank branches over the 5-year period, a 14-percent 
decline.
    The negative financial impacts on rural counties of branch 
closures are perpetuated by the continuing difficulties due to 
burdensome regulations and other roadblocks of de novo 
community bank formation.
    The Federal Reserve report identified 44 counties 
considered deeply affected by trends in bank closures and 
consolidation, which it defines as counties that had 10 or 
fewer branches in 2012, and lost at least 50 percent of those 
branches by 2017. Eighty-nine percent of the deeply affected 
counties are rural counties, including Nicholas County in my 
district, and counties in the districts of several of my 
colleagues.
    The current framework of Federal, State, and local laws 
prohibits discrimination of any kind in lending. Financial 
regulators have developed robust tools to ensure that regulated 
firms play by those rules. To the extent that firms are failing 
to comply with those rules, or that additional statutory 
authority is needed to combat discrimination, we must act.
    However, we must also be cautious about imposing additional 
restrictions and regulations on lenders that do not accomplish 
a specific goal, and monitor potential impacts of our actions 
on the widespread availability of financing to creditworthy 
borrowers.
    Emerging technology has allowed people previously outside 
the banking system to access financial services and has 
enhanced lenders' ability to tailor their products to the 
specific characteristics of the borrower based on race-blind 
metrics. Meaningful restrictions on risk-based pricing will do 
more harm than good, as creditworthy borrowers pay more for the 
capital they need.
    Promoting across-the-board financial inclusion should be a 
top bipartisan priority for this subcommittee. I appreciate the 
opportunity to discuss ways to ensure that more people, 
including those currently underserved in the market, have easy, 
fair, and safe access to financial services.
    I look forward to working with Chairman Green to ensure 
that discrimination does not occur in lending, and to promote 
policies that expand access to credit and lead to long-term 
economic growth. And, again, the warning is to not do away with 
risk-based pricing, which I think would curtail and restrict 
access to credit for creditworthy borrowers.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
    Chairman Green. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. I appreciate 
your commentary, and I look forward to working with you.
    I am told that the Chair of the Full Committee, Chairwoman 
Waters, has arrived, so I will now yield to Chairwoman Maxine 
Waters for 1 minute.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you so very much. Good afternoon, 
Chairman Green.
    The discriminatory lending practices of the 20th Century 
continue to affect minority communities long after they are 
repealed. The effects of decades of government-sanctioned 
discrimination continue to plague our housing and lending 
markets today, ultimately hindering the ability of households 
of color to build equity and accumulate wealth through 
homeownership relative to White households.
    Since home equity is the primary source of wealth for most 
families, disparities in homeownership and home equity are key 
drivers of the racial wealth gap. So, I look forward to hearing 
from our witnesses today about what we can do to remedy the 
continuing economic effects of discrimination.
    Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.
    Chairman Green. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    Let me make an announcement, if I may. We will have 
additional votes, and the staff has indicated that we will make 
a great attempt to wait until the first vote has expired, or 
nearly expired. This way, we will be able to cast two votes and 
then come back to the hearing. My hope is that we will get this 
done as expeditiously as possible.
    Today, I would like to welcome each of our witnesses. And I 
am pleased to introduce this panel: William Darity, Jr., 
professor of public policy, African and African-American 
studies, and economics at Duke University, as well as the 
director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity; 
Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing 
Alliance; Andre Perry, senior fellow at the Metropolitan Policy 
Program at the Brookings Institution; Frances Espinoza, 
executive director of the North Texas Fair Housing Center; and 
Cheryl Cooper, an analyst for the Financial Economics Division 
at the Congressional Research Service.
    Witnesses are reminded that your oral testimony will be 
limited to 5 minutes. You should be able to see a timer--and 
this timer should be on your screen--that will indicate how 
much time you have left, and a chime will go off at the end of 
your time. I would ask that you be mindful of the timer, and 
quickly wrap up your testimony if you hear the chime, so that 
we can be respectful of both the witnesses' and the committee 
members' time. And without objection, your written statements 
will be made a part of the record.
    Once the witnesses finish their testimony, each Member will 
have 5 minutes to ask questions. And may I remind Members to 
please get your questions and answers in within that 5-minute 
time period. Let me restate this differently; you should not, 
at the end of your 5 minutes, have multiple questions to be 
answered. Please be mindful of the time of other Members in 
trying to get your time in within the 5 minutes.
    Professor Darity, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to 
give an oral presentation of your testimony.

 STATEMENT OF WILLIAM DARITY, JR., PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY, 
   AFRICAN AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES, AND ECONOMICS, DUKE 
 UNIVERSITY; AND DIRECTOR, SAMUEL DUBOIS COOK CENTER ON SOCIAL 
                             EQUITY

    Mr. Darity. Thank you, Chairman Green, Ranking Member Barr, 
and members of the subcommittee.
    Discrimination in access to credit and the terms of credit 
is an important barrier to Black wealth accumulation. 
Elimination of this barrier, albeit wholly desirable, will not 
eliminate the gaping chasm in wealth between Black and White 
Americans.
    The fundamental reason for Black-White differences in 
wealth is not high Black indebtedness. The fundamental reason 
is low Black asset holdings.
    A Prosperity Now study in 2019 reported that median Black 
household liabilities were $30,800, while the median White 
household liabilities were more than twice as large, at 
$73,800. However, White households had a median level of assets 
valued in excess of $260,000, in contrast with the median Black 
households' assets, valued at $55,900.
    The median Black household had 40 percent of the debt of 
the median White household but only 20 percent of the assets. 
Correspondingly, the ratio of assets to debts for Black 
households was 1.6, versus 2.8 for White households, both 
measured at the median.
    The magnitude of the racial wealth gap, driven 
predominantly by a racial difference in asset ownership, is 
staggering. The 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances indicates that 
the Black-White wealth gap at the median was $164,000, and at 
the mean, it was substantially larger, at $840,900.
    Assuming an average household size of 3 persons, the median 
gap per person was $52,500 and the mean gap was $280,000. These 
are conservative estimates of per-capita differentials because 
the average White household size is actually less than 3 
people.
    Many observers treat the median gap as the target for 
closing the racial wealth gap in the United States. In this 
context, it may be more appropriate to set the more demanding 
target at the mean.
    Wealth is so densely concentrated in the United States that 
90 percent of the wealth held by White Americans is in the 
possession of White households with a net worth above the White 
median. Close to 99 percent of White household wealth is held 
by those with a net worth above the national median, 
approximately $100,000. Twenty-five percent of White households 
have a net worth in excessive of $1 million, in contrast with 
only 4 percent of Black households.
    The limitations of an exclusive focus on debt reduction 
rather than asset building comes into stark relief when 
considering a policy of student loan relief. Whether one 
eliminates student debt by trying to erase the difference at 
the median or the mean, there will be at best an incremental 
effect on the racial wealth differential.
    The net reduction in the gap will be $1,856 after we adjust 
for the enrollment rates that are different between the two 
communities. And, therefore, the reduction amounts to only 3 
percent of the total median gap of $52,500. It amounts to less 
than 1 percent at the mean gap of $280,000.
    Indeed, the key to understanding the sources of the racial 
wealth gap is government policy that supported the 
underdevelopment of asset accumulation in the Black community.
    In January 1865, General William T. Sherman, after 
Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and he held a consultation with 
a group of Black leaders in Savannah, Georgia, issued Special 
Order No. 15. His directive assigned 5.3 million acres of land, 
stretching from the Sea Islands of South Carolina to the 
portion of northern Florida bordered by the St. Johns River, as 
a site for settlement and property for the newly emancipated.
    Here was an intended preliminary phase of a substantial 
land reform on behalf of the formerly enslaved that would have 
amounted to at least 40 million acres of land for the 4 million 
persons released from bondage.
    Ultimately, only 40,000 persons settled on 400,000 acres, 
but even that small allotment was lost by the end of the year. 
Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor, ended the land allocation 
program and restored the properties to the former slaveholders. 
The promise of 40-acre land grants remained unfulfilled.
    Simultaneously, the Federal Government, under the auspices 
of the Homestead Act of 1862, was distributing 160-acre tracts 
of lands to upwards of 1.5 million White families in the 
western territories. This huge asset-building policy resulted 
in benefits carrying over to a conservative estimate of 45 
million White living descendants of Homestead Act patents.
    The racial wealth gap in the United States originates with 
the failure to give the formerly enslaved 40 acres, while White 
Americans, including new immigrants, were given 160 acres of 
land.
    Conditions worsened with wave upon wave of White massacres 
that took place between the end of the Civil War and World War 
II. In the Red Summer of 1919, upwards of 35 White terrorist 
actions took place across the country in locations ranging from 
Chicago, Illinois; to Omaha, Nebraska; to Washington, D.C.; to 
Elaine, Arkansas.
    The most famous of these--
    Chairman Green. Professor, I am going to have to ask that 
you summarize quickly, please.
    Mr. Darity. Okay--took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921.
    I would add that the destruction of Black property and the 
appropriation of Black property that was lost in that period of 
time was compounded by the policies in the 20th Century that 
discriminatorily provided support for asset building in the 
form of homeownership.
    Indeed, the effects of these disparities transmitted across 
generations resulted in the contemporary Black-White wealth 
gap. And the disproportionate growth in Black debt matters in 
explaining America's racial wealth gap, but the 
disproportionate deprivation of Black assets matters far more.
    By all means, we should take steps to make the credit 
market more racially equitable, but if our goal is to eliminate 
the Black-White difference in wealth, the focus must be placed 
on building Black assets to a level consistent with White asset 
ownership.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Darity can be found on page 
44 of the appendix.]
    Chairman Green. Thank you, Professor.
    Ms. Rice, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to give your 
oral presentation.

   STATEMENT OF LISA RICE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL FAIR 
                    HOUSING ALLIANCE (NFHA)

    Ms. Rice. Chairwoman Waters, Subcommittee Chair Green, 
Subcommittee Ranking Member Barr, and other members of the 
subcommittee, I want to first thank you for inviting me to talk 
about this really important issue.
    Housing and lending discrimination have been a part of the 
United States since its inception, and have helped create the 
racial wealth and homeownership gaps that Professor Darity has 
just spoken about.
    Due to government-sanctioned discriminatory policies as 
well as private-market practices, underserved groups have been 
systemically excluded from wealth-building opportunities such 
as homeownership.
    These groups still experience high levels of 
discrimination. There are over 4 million instances of housing 
discrimination each year. Redlining, which persists in various 
forms today, real estate sales discrimination, appraisal bias, 
lending discrimination, and tech bias are significant barriers 
that keep the dream of homeownership from becoming a reality 
for many people, and contribute to the racial wealth gap.
    Moreover, structural barriers, such as the dual credit 
market, segregation, and restrictive zoning ordinances, create 
systemic impediments which significantly prohibit the ability 
of people of color to access fair housing and fair lending 
opportunities and perpetuates the racial wealth and 
homeownership gaps.
    The segregation of people based on race, coupled with the 
segregation of resources, drives many of the disparities in 
health, education, wealth, and many other areas. And these 
structural barriers, these structural inequities are a reason 
that Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans are contracting and 
dying from the COVID virus at disproportionately higher rates 
than their White counterparts.
    Segregation is also a driver of the racial homeownership 
gaps. The homeownership rate for Black Americans, for example, 
is where it was when the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968. 
And the homeownership gap between Blacks and Whites is as wide 
today as it was in 1890.
    There are many ways that invidious discrimination harms 
communities. For example, many of the technologies used in the 
housing and financial services space are biased, and 
discriminate against consumers of color. Tenant screening 
selection tools, automated underwriting systems, credit scoring 
models, risk-based pricing systems, and digital marketing 
platforms all have discriminatory outcomes and lock people out 
of housing opportunities.
    Too many people experience discrimination when they seek to 
access housing and housing-related opportunities. Newsday 
recently completed an in-depth testing project on Long Island, 
New York, in which they found that 49 percent of African 
Americans, 39 percent of Hispanics, and 19 percent of Asian 
Americans experienced discrimination, including racial 
steering.
    Real estate discrimination can take on myriad forms, and 
our recent lawsuit against Redfin illustrates that: NFHA and 
nine of our member organizations conducted a comprehensive 
investigation of Redfin, one of the nation's largest real 
estate companies. The investigation uncovered disturbing 
practices that suggested really wide-scale discrimination and 
modern-day technology-based real estate redlining. The groups 
found that Redfin offered its best available service at 
significantly higher rates in extremely White communities, and 
offered no service for homes in communities of color at much 
greater rates than in predominantly White areas.
    Appraisal bias and lending discrimination are also still 
too common. Analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) 
data revealed that communities of color are still being 
redlined by mainstream financial institutions.
    One way to overcome discrimination is to increase funds for 
testing programs. And the Supreme Court has stated that testing 
is one of the best mechanisms for ferreting out discrimination.
    This is why the National Fair Housing Alliance supports the 
Fair Lending for All Act, which would help address longstanding 
barriers to fair and equal credit by adding sexual orientation 
and gender identity protections to the Equal Credit Opportunity 
Act, but would also make it illegal to discriminate against 
people based on geographical location, and re-empower the 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to address fair-
lending issues and to test for fair-lending violations.
    And I thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Rice can be found on page 60 
of the appendix.]
    Chairman Green. Thank you very much, Ms. Rice, for your 
testimony.
    Mr. Perry, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to give an 
oral presentation of your testimony.

STATEMENT OF ANDRE M. PERRY, SENIOR FELLOW, METROPOLITAN POLICY 
               PROGRAM, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

    Mr. Perry. Chairwoman Waters, Chairman Green, Ranking 
Member Barr, Vice Ranking Member Timmons, thank you for 
inviting me to testify today on this extremely important issue 
that affects millions of people across the country.
    ``We are here today because we are tired. We are tired of 
paying more for less.''
    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said those words in 1966, to 
35,000 people in Chicago's Soldier Field, as part of the 
Chicago Freedom Movement, also known as the Chicago Open 
Housing Movement. Dr. King went on to relay housing price 
differences that resulted in Black people paying higher rents 
in Black-majority communities for worse housing than their 
White counterparts.
    ``Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy,'' 
Dr. King declared. ``Now is the time to open the doors of 
opportunity to all of God's children.''
    More than half a century later, now is still the time. 
According to the most recent Census figures, the Black 
homeownership rate in America is 46 percent, almost the exact 
same level that it was when Dr. King spoke in 1966. This is 
compared to the White homeownership rate, which is roughly 74 
percent.
    Even as overall U.S. homeownership has grown over the last 
2 decades, there has been a catastrophic loss of homeownership 
in key cities that have large shares of Black residents.
    When people in Black neighborhoods do own homes, we accrue 
less wealth. Homeowners in disproportionately Black and Latino 
neighborhoods are gaining wealth at about half the speed of 
homeowners in predominantly White neighborhoods.
    One of the reasons is that these homes are devalued. In the 
2018 Brookings report, ``The Devaluation of Assets in Black 
Neighborhoods,'' Jonathan Rothwell, David Harshbarger, and I 
found that, even after accounting for structural 
characteristics such as square footage, age, and number of 
bedrooms, as well as neighborhood characteristics such as crime 
and school quality, homes in Black neighborhoods were valued, 
on average, $48,000 less than they would have been if the 
residents of the neighborhood were mostly White. That is a 
cumulative loss of $156 billion nationwide.
    And we witness viral news stories revealing how appraisers 
value Black and White homeowners differently. In Jacksonville, 
Florida, a mixed-race family looking to sell their home in a 
predominantly White neighborhood received an original appraisal 
of $330,000. After presenting a White owner, a second appraisal 
came in $135,000 higher.
    A similar incident occurred in Denver. Again, after the 
family removed indicators of Blackness, the home increased in 
value by $145,000. In San Francisco, a second appraisal 
increased its value by $500,000.
    ``We are here today because we are tired. We are tired of 
paying more for less.''
    These seemingly individual acts of racism are part and 
parcel of a structural problem. The housing market is 
structured to disproportionately exclude Black and Brown 
households.
    For instance, our zoning codes and building practices are 
streamlined to deliver large, single-family homes. My 
colleague, Tracy Loh, and I showed in a recent study that, for 
decades, the very largest houses--four or more bedrooms--have 
grown as a share of all housing inventory, while smaller homes, 
which are more affordable for low-wealth families, have 
stagnated or declined.
    Over 6 million Black and Brown millennials would be 
considered mortgage-ready if there were any attainable homes 
for sale in prime locations.
    Black buyers are subjected to racist steering practices 
when looking for a home. When applying for a loan, Black buyers 
are perceived as higher-risk, leading to more denials and 
higher interest rates.
    Devaluation limits the amount of gain from refinancing. As 
we have heard, bad appraisals also rob families of wealth.
    And all of these housing industry actors blame each other 
for the problem.
    ``We are here today because we are tired. We are tired of 
paying more for less.''
    We made individual racism in the housing market illegal, 
and when it finds its way back in, we make a headline. But 
structural racism rigs the game from the start. The root cause 
for these negative trends is structural racism, which is 
systemic. To unlock the potential of Black neighborhoods and 
their residents, systemic racism must be pulled at its roots, 
rather than trimmed neatly, only to grow again.
    Thank you for my time.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Perry can be found on page 
52 of the appendix.]
    Chairman Green. Thank you, Mr. Perry.
    Ms. Espinoza, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to give 
an oral presentation of your testimony.

STATEMENT OF FRANCES ESPINOZA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NORTH TEXAS 
                      FAIR HOUSING CENTER

    Ms. Espinoza. Thank you, Chairman Green, Ranking Member 
Barr, and subcommittee members.
    The North Texas Fair Housing Center is a nonprofit 
organization that provides fair-housing services to residents 
of north Texas. Our services consist of fair-housing 
counseling, intake, and investigation of housing discrimination 
complaints, and fair-housing education.
    It has been 50 years since the Federal Fair Housing Act 
banned racial discrimination in lending, yet African-American 
and Latino applicants continue to be routinely denied 
conventional mortgage loans at rates far higher than their 
White counterparts.
    In 2011, the North Texas Fair Housing Center did an 
analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data and found that 
African-American and Latino mortgage applicants were denied 
conventional mortgages at much higher rates than Whites in the 
Dallas-Fort Worth market.
    For example, African-American mortgage applicants to Wells 
Fargo Bank were 57 percent less likely to get a home purchase 
loan when compared to White applicants. Latino mortgage 
applicants to Chase Bank were 64 percent less likely to get a 
loan than were White applicants. Home Mortgage Disclosure Act 
data from 2015 and 2016 confirmed the same pattern.
    One of the most valuable tools we use to investigate 
housing discrimination is testing. Testing allows us to compare 
how applicants of color are treated as compared to their White 
counterparts.
    As part of our enforcement program, we use the results of 
testing as evidence in housing discrimination complaints. We 
file both administrative complaints with the U.S. Department of 
Housing and Urban Development and lawsuits in Federal court.
    The most common form of testing we do is rental testing. In 
2011, we conducted rental testing which showed that African 
Americans who were otherwise qualified encountered 
discrimination in 37 percent of their housing searches. This 
means that African Americans face discrimination in two out of 
every five housing searches.
    The testing also showed that Latinos experienced 
discrimination in 33 percent of their housing searches, or at 
least once in every three housing searches.
    In our most recent enforcement initiative in 2019, we 
conducted tests to measure how veterans with Housing Choice 
Vouchers were treated in the housing market in Dallas, Texas. 
We conducted a total of 35 tests, and the results of 32 of them 
showed evidence of discrimination. We filed housing 
discrimination administrative complaints for all 32 tests.
    The next most common form of testing that we do is sales 
testing. These tests measure how real estate agents treat 
buyers of color as compared to their White counterparts. In 
2018, we conducted sales tests which showed that African-
American testers are still being steered, based on their race, 
to neighborhoods that are predominantly African-American and 
steered away from neighborhoods that are majority-White.
    Unlike rental and sales testing, mortgage lending testing 
is very resource-intensive. One of the challenges is the 
significant amount of time that testers must devote to each 
test. Unlike rental tests, which can be completed rather 
quickly, lending interviews involve several complex financial 
components, even at the pre-application stage. Testers must 
also be knowledgeable about the entire lending process.
    Rental, sales, and lending testing can all be used to 
uncover practices that lead to segregation of neighborhoods. 
However, there is a particular need to devote resources to 
lending testing because it is so resource-intensive.
    There is also a need for enforcement of complaints based on 
lending testing evidence. Because lending testing cases are 
more complex, they sometimes languish in the administrative 
process. There is a need for a strong entity with an expertise 
in lending discrimination that can take the testing evidence 
generated by local fair-housing organizations and move forward 
with enforcement that will thwart illegal practices.
    Thank you for inviting me. My statement is complete.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Espinoza can be found on 
page 50 of the appendix.]
    Chairman Green. Thank you very much, Ms. Espinoza.
    Ms. Cooper, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to give an 
oral presentation of your testimony.

  STATEMENT OF CHERYL R. COOPER, ANALYST, FINANCIAL ECONOMICS 
            DIVISION, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

    Ms. Cooper. Chairman Green, Ranking Member Barr, and 
members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to 
testify today.
    My name is Cheryl Cooper, and I am an analyst in financial 
economics at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), focusing 
on consumer finance markets and policy issues. For those who 
might be unfamiliar with CRS, our role is to provide objective, 
nonpartisan research and analysis to Congress.
    Any arguments presented in my testimony are for the 
purposes of informing Congress and not to advocate for a 
particular policy outcome.
    My testimony today will focus on disparities in access to 
financial products and services, including racial, ethnic, 
income, age, and geographic disparities. In particular, I will 
focus on discussing disparities in access to banking services 
and disparities in inclusion in the credit reporting system. 
These areas are generally considered foundational for 
households to successfully manage their financial affairs and 
to graduate to wealth-building activities in the future, like 
homeownership.
    Consumers often rely on family or community connections to 
get their first bank account, establish a credit history, and 
gain access to affordable credit. However, research suggests 
that disparities in family wealth or in community relationships 
with financial institutions can potentially persist across 
generations.
    A factor that may be influencing racial disparities is the 
intergenerational effects of discrimination--for example, 
historical mortgage lending practices, redlining practices.
    Moreover, violations in fair-lending laws can cause harm to 
consumers who do not get access to financial services. This is 
important because safe and affordable financial services are an 
important tool for most American households to help them avoid 
financial hardship and build assets over the course of their 
lives.
    According to the FDIC's 2019 survey, over 5 percent of 
households in the United States were unbanked, meaning that 
these households did not have a bank account. In addition, over 
17 percent of households used a nonbank financial transaction 
service, like a money order, a check-cashing, or a bill payment 
service.
    These households are disproportionately of a racial or 
ethnic minority and tend to be lower-income, younger, and have 
less formal education. Urban and rural households are more 
likely to be unbanked, compared to suburban households.
    Unbanked households report that they do not have a bank 
account because they do not have enough money, they don't trust 
banks, they have privacy concerns, and they want to avoid high 
and unpredictable bank fees.
    These disparities in access are significant because some 
research suggests the importance of emergency savings and 
affordable payment transactions. Also, developing a 
relationship with a bank can sometimes lead to access to other 
financial products, helping young consumers develop a credit 
history.
    A limited credit history may serve as a barrier to 
achieving affordable credit, yet consumers also can't develop a 
credit history without access to credit products. This chicken-
and-egg situation can make it difficult for some people to 
enter the credit reporting system.
    According to the CFPB, credit scores can't be generated for 
approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population due to their 
limited credit histories. Limited credit history is correlated 
with age, income, race, and ethnicity. Many of these consumers 
are young. For example, 40 percent of credit invisibles are 
under 25-years-old. These consumers are disproportionately 
Black or Latino and live in lower-income or rural 
neighborhoods.
    Most young adults transition into the credit reporting 
system in their early twenties. Young adults in lower-income 
and rural neighborhoods tend to make the transition to credit 
visibility at older ages than young adults in higher-income 
areas. And, notably, in lower-income communities, it is less 
common to enter the credit reporting system through what is 
called, ``piggybacking,'' or becoming a joint account holder or 
authorized user on another person's account, such as a parent's 
account.
    The disparities in inclusion to the credit reporting system 
are significant because it is generally a precursor to gain 
access to affordable credit and eventually to homeownership.
    Thank you for your time, and I am happy to answer any 
questions that you have.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Cooper can be found on page 
32 of the appendix.]
    Chairman Green. Thank you very much, Ms. Cooper.
    The Chair will now recognize Members for questions.
    The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Cleaver, who is also the 
Chair of our Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development, 
and Insurance, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this 
opportunity. And I think this is exactly the kind of hearing 
that we need, so thank you.
    Where I would like to center my discussion, my questions, 
is on the fact that the current Federal public policies operate 
to perpetuate or expand the racial wealth gap.
    So, I would like to ask any of the panelists, are there 
Federal public policies that actually contribute to the 
exclusion of African Americans, Brown people, people of color? 
And what impact does it have on the wealth gap? I am talking 
about Federal policies.
    Mr. Perry. I will take a stab at that.
    One of the things I am noticing is that current legislation 
does not address wealth in this country. We measure almost 
everything by income. And by doing so, you essentially abdicate 
responsibilities of dealing with the structures that created 
the gaps in the first place. In many different systems--
housing, education, and other areas--if you don't address the 
wealth gap, you essentially gloss over the problem.
    In addition, we also have a race and space problem. Because 
racist policies have followed Black people, we see 
discrimination in rural communities, in urban communities, in 
suburbs. And, for my take, it is hard to not have a race and 
place approach to change.
    And so, for me, it is not necessarily what the Federal 
Government is doing; it is what the Federal Government is not 
doing, not measuring, not testing. Because we have ample data 
that shows the impact of our policies, but what we have not 
done is really get at the reasons, the causes for these 
disparities.
    Mr. Cleaver. Yes. I think you are making a case for the 
increase of the minimum wage, and I think that is going to--
that is a debate we are having right now.
    Ms. Rice. Congressman, if I can add to that, too, there are 
a lot of policies that perpetuate racial disparity. So, in 
terms of Federal policies: the recently promulgated cap rule 
that was promulgated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency; the 
GSE LLPA structure, the loan-level pricing adjustment 
structure, discriminates against communities of color; the 
current Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule that was 
promulgated several months ago by the Department of Housing and 
Urban Development, which really eviscerates our civil rights 
rules; and the current Disparate Impact rule that was 
promulgated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development 
several months ago, which also eviscerates a major civil rights 
tool that we have for addressing discriminatory policies.
    So, there are many, many Federal policies that right now, 
work to perpetuate discriminatory outcomes.
    Mr. Cleaver. Thank you.
    I think my time is running down, so I appreciate both you 
and Mr. Perry for your comments. Thank you.
    Chairman Green. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the ranking member of the 
subcommittee, Mr. Barr, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Last year, I introduced H.R. 8410, the Promoting Access to 
Capital in Underbanked Communities Act, which is designed to 
spur de novo bank formation and promote banking services in 
underserved areas.
    The bill would ease the up-front burden of opening a bank, 
and provide incentives for banks to open and operate in rural 
areas. The bill is intended to address the problem of deeply 
affected counties that I referenced in my opening statement, 
which have lost a large portion of their bank branches.
    Ms. Cooper, how have bank closures in rural communities 
impacted customers living in those areas? What long-term issues 
will arise if rural communities continue to face an 
unprecedented number of bank closures? And we anticipate that, 
given the trend of bank consolidation. Could a bill like the 
one I just referenced, designed to promote more banking 
activity in rural and otherwise underserved areas, help with 
those problems?
    Ms. Cooper. Thank you so much for your question, 
Congressman.
    As I mentioned in my oral statement, there are geographic 
disparities that exist in terms of access to financial 
products. And as you mentioned and I mentioned, research 
suggests that, for consumers living in rural areas, these 
consumers may be living farther from bank branches or also may 
be less likely to have access to high-speed internet, and both 
of these factors could possibly make it more difficult for 
consumers to access quality banking services.
    We at CRS don't advocate for a particular policy outcome, 
but I would be happy, after this hearing, to look at the bill 
with some of my CRS colleagues.
    Also, in general, around trends in terms of consolidation 
in the banking industry, this has been happening for decades. 
We have seen a reduction in community banks for the past few 
decades, particularly a reduction in bank branch openings in 
the past decade.
    And there are a lot of different factors that are leading 
to this trend. In general, economists would say that you are 
starting to see economies of scale, which basically means that 
big banks are becoming more profitable than smaller banks to 
operate. And that is probably part of the reason why we are 
seeing this consolidation in the banking industry.
    Mr. Barr. Ms. Cooper, I did see, though--and I respect that 
CRS doesn't make policy endorsements, but I did see in your 
testimony, in the, ``Possible Policy Responses'' section, 
``Bank Regulation Changes,'' that you mentioned the Community 
Reinvestment Act (CRA). And I think, for our friends and 
neighbors in underserved parts of our country in both urban and 
rural areas, this is something that I think would be welcome, 
to give banks more credit for bank account outreach activities 
in those underserved areas.
    Do you have any specifics on that? We saw an effort by the 
OCC, and Lael Brainard at the Federal Reserve, to update the 
CRA, but how can we give incumbent banks and new banks in these 
underserved areas credit for originating loans under the CRA?
    Ms. Cooper. Yes. Thank you so much for that question.
    You are right, one of the things that I mentioned in terms 
of possible policy options for expanding access to credit was 
possible proposed changes to bank regulation. So, this is one 
of the areas where we see proposals on this.
    For example, I know the bank regulators have stated that 
they were considering changes to the Community Reinvestment Act 
to give banks more credit for bank account outreach activities 
in underserved communities. But I think there are trade-offs to 
these type of policies.
    The positive, as you were saying, is that it can encourage 
bank outreach and connect more consumers to banks. But I think 
the flip side to it is, also, it could give credit for what 
some may consider effectively marketing, rather than the 
intention of the law, which was to encourage lending in 
underserved communities.
    Mr. Barr. Thank you.
    Ms. Cooper. This is an area where there--
    Mr. Barr. Thank you.
    And just reclaiming my time, in the final time I have, how 
is compliance under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act currently 
tested? And is there any indication that the testing regime 
needs to be strengthened? Or do regulators currently have 
enough authority to enforce that law?
    And that is again to you, Ms. Cooper.
    Ms. Cooper. Yes. Thank you so much for that question. And 
we are running out of time, so let me get back to you with 
that. I am happy to answer that question with one of my CRS 
colleagues.
    Mr. Barr. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired, and I know 
that is a subject or a topic that is part of your legislation, 
so I invite any or all of the witnesses to comment on that and 
how we can make sure the ECOA is tested.
    With that, I yield back.
    Chairman Green. The gentleman's time has expired. And the 
witness may respond in writing to the gentleman's question.
    The Chair will now recognize Ms. Adams, the gentlelady from 
North Carolina.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you to our witnesses for your testimony today.
    Mr. Darity and Mr. Perry, you have both have done extensive 
research and writing on economic and racial inequity in the 
United States. In today's hearing, we focus primarily on how 
lending discrimination harms individual borrowers of color, but 
I am curious to hear your thoughts on how the same dynamics, 
primarily racism, also impact institutions of color, such as 
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
    In December of 2019, a study in the Journal of Financial 
Economics found that HBCUs pay higher underwriting fees to 
issue tax-exempt bonds compared with similar non-HBCUs, 
apparently reflecting higher costs of finding willing buyers. 
The effect is 3 times larger in the Deep South, where racial 
animus remains the most severe.
    For example, identical fee differences are observed between 
HBCUs and non-HBCUs with triple-A ratings or when insured by 
the same company, even before the 2007-2009 financial crisis. 
HBCU-issued bonds are also more expensive to trade in secondary 
markets and, when they do, sit in inventory longer.
    So are you familiar with this type of institutional lending 
discrimination? And what policy steps can we take to collect 
more data on the prevalence of this issue and ultimately to 
eradicate this type of harmful discrimination in lending for 
institutions that have been historically underserved and 
undervalued?
    Mr. Darity. It is my impression that this is a serious 
problem, but I think it is compounded or generated by the fact 
that Historically Black Colleges and Universities have such low 
endowment levels that they are then pressured to go into the 
credit market, a discriminatory credit market, to gain 
resources.
    Another way to think about improving their circumstances is 
something that I think is applicable to individual households 
as well, which is, we need to build the wealth position of 
those institutions in such a way that they don't have the same 
type of pressure to seek predatory lending options to try to 
maintain their operations.
    And we should think about how we could go about building 
the endowments of Historically Black Colleges and Universities 
so that they are comparable to the endowment levels that exist 
for White institutions in the United States. That is where we 
have a very glaring and dramatic difference.
    In addition, of course, I think that we do have to confront 
these kinds of discriminatory practices. And it may be 
necessary for the Federal Government to take the step of 
providing public banking services in competition with the 
private sector to offset the types of behavior that we are 
observing that the private sector is undertaking.
    And one final comment in this context. I said that this 
parallels the conditions that we observe for households, 
because the reason why households are pushed into trying to 
seek high levels of credit under very, very difficult 
circumstances, discriminatory circumstances, is, again, because 
their initial levels of wealth are so low. So, again, I would 
say, we have to think about asset building in addition to 
trying to improve credit market conditions.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Perry, did you want to comment?
    Mr. Perry. I think Mr. Darity said everything I was going 
to say. In a nutshell, I think Black institutions are treated 
like Black people. And you have school boards and universities 
that, because of their wealth position, have to take 
essentially subprime market products, for all of the reasons 
that Mr. Darity indicated.
    But I will just leave it there.
    Ms. Adams. Okay. Thank you, sir.
    Let me move on quickly. Ms. Rice, Ms. Espinoza, just how 
pervasive is lending discrimination in the United States? Is it 
widescale, or is it just a small problem?
    Ms. Rice?
    Ms. Rice. Sure. I am happy to answer that.
    Yes, it is very widescale, especially when you consider, 
Congresswoman Adams, that almost all of the technologies that 
we use in the lending space--automated underwriting systems, 
risk-based pricing systems and credit scoring systems--
discriminate against consumers of color and other underserved 
groups.
    So the discrimination is very prevalent, which is why we 
have to really work to de-bias all of these technologies that 
we are using in the housing and financial services space.
    Ms. Adams. Okay. Is the answer--
    Chairman Green. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Ms. Adams. Okay. Thank you very much, and, Mr. Chairman, I 
yield back.
    Chairman Green. The gentlelady's question can be answered 
in writing.
    Ms. Adams. Great. Thank you.
    Chairman Green. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Loudermilk, 
is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    As I was preparing for this hearing, I was trying to think 
of ways that we as policymakers can help the minority 
communities have more access to financial services and wealth 
building. One thing that immediately came to mind, which is 
something that I have been working on for a long time, is 
fintech.
    In recent years, developments in the financial technology 
arena have made enormous strides toward giving minority 
consumers access to the banking system. Let me just go through 
a few of these.
    The first is mobile banking. It makes it easier than ever 
to open a checking account without having to go into a bank 
branch.
    The second is online lending. It uses fintech platforms and 
even incorporates artificial intelligence in underwriting and 
has expanded access to credit to millions of consumers who were 
credit-invisible and didn't qualify for a traditional bank 
loan.
    Prepaid cards are another. They have enabled consumers who 
do not have credit or debit cards to access e-commerce.
    And the list goes on and on.
    And it is not just in consumer finance. A recent study by 
New York University showed that fintech companies are by far 
the number-one source of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) 
loans for Black-owned small businesses, exceeding Minority 
Depository Institutions (MDIs) and Community Development 
Financial Institutions (CDFIs). Fintechs have also been the 
number-one source of PPP lending to Hispanic-owned businesses.
    As a result of this, I offered an amendment at this 
committee's markup of the stimulus bill that would allow 
fintech companies to participate in the State Small Business 
Credit Initiative (SSBCI). Unfortunately, it was rejected by 
the Majority. I would just say, if my colleagues are interested 
in improving access to financial services for minority 
consumers, I would suggest embracing fintech instead of 
opposing it.
    Ms. Cooper, in your testimony, you said that new technology 
can provide more affordable financial products to consumers. 
Can you discuss how fintech has expanded access to credit for 
minority consumers?
    Ms. Cooper. Thank you so much for that question, 
Congressman.
    So, yes, as you just stated, I think new technology could 
potentially provide more affordable financial products to 
underserved communities, but it also could introduce consumer 
protection risks as well.
    And this is similar to what you were saying. One example of 
this, for example, would be internet-based or mobile financial 
products, which, for example, could lower the cost to provide 
payment services or other types of products, but these types of 
products could have, for example, cybersecurity or privacy 
risks as well.
    So, I think there is always a trade-off there when you are 
thinking about this stuff.
    Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you for that, and I appreciate it.
    On another note, because of these developments and what you 
have laid out, data security and data privacy laws, I think, 
need to be updated, and we need a uniform national standard. Do 
you have any thoughts on that?
    Ms. Cooper. No. In general, I would say that CRS does not 
advocate for any particular policy outcome. And I personally am 
not the one at CRS who covers those issues, but I would be 
happy to put you in touch with the CRS analyst who does, to 
work with you and your staffers.
    Mr. Loudermilk. I appreciate that.
    And as we continue to hopefully promote fintech, since it 
is very beneficial in underserved areas of our nation and 
underserved demographics, we do have to address some 
limitations, which could be the data security, because we are 
looking at more than 50 different standards with which we have 
to deal.
    So, I appreciate the time here, Mr. Chairman, and I yield 
back.
    Chairman Green. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Michigan, Ms. 
Tlaib, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you all so much for being with us.
    As we all know, despite decades of civil rights laws on the 
books, Black homeownership is plunging across the nation, with 
the worst losses happening right here in Michigan. Detroit has 
seen a dramatic shift from a city of homeowners where Black 
family members could build intergenerational wealth to, now, a 
city of renters. And the predatory lenders on Wall Street who 
crashed the economy in 2007-2008, as we know, got bailed out, 
while many of my residents got foreclosed on by the thousands.
    Redlining never ended in Detroit. In 2019, in a city of 
more than 650,000 people, there were only 1,535 mortgages 
issued. And that is up from 2012, when we only had 244 
mortgages that were reported. When mortgages are issued in 
Detroit, they go towards those who are White borrowers, who are 
a small minority of the population.
    And so, unwillingness of banks to lend in Detroit and other 
majority-Black communities pushes our residents into riskier 
arrangements, like land contracts, which offer opportunities 
but also fewer protections and have been abused by predatory 
sellers.
    Ms. Rice, we know banks aren't drawing red lines on a map 
anymore but that discrimination still persists. Can you 
describe some of the tactics and technology that lenders use 
now to perpetuate racial redlining?
    Ms. Rice. Sure. Thank you so much for that question, and it 
is a critically important issue.
    I am from Toledo, Ohio, and so I am very familiar with the 
Detroit market and other markets like it. One major problem 
that we have in cities like Detroit is that a lot of the 
housing stock is very affordable and is priced under $100,000. 
And, for a variety of reasons, it is extremely difficult in 
today's marketplace for consumers to access mortgage credit in 
the financial mainstream when you are trying to get what we 
call a smaller-dollar loan.
    The qualified mortgage rule, coupled with the LLPAs from 
the GSEs, coupled with other Federal policies, really restrict 
credit access for more affordable loans. So, that is a major 
problem.
    The other problem is the industry's overreliance on credit 
scores. Back when I was underwriting mortgages years ago, two 
of the key things that I relied on to determine a borrower's 
creditworthiness were: What are your current housing payments? 
Have you been paying your rent on time? And if you have been 
paying your current housing bill on time, you are a very good 
candidate. And, also, what is your housing payment shock? So, 
is the new mortgage that you are going to be paying appreciably 
different from the housing payment that you have been used to 
making? And if you have been paying your rent on time, and if 
there is really no housing payment shock, you are a very good 
candidate for getting credit.
    But we don't use those two indicators anymore. Today, we 
overrely on algorithmic-based systems, like credit scores, 
automated underwriting systems, that don't include those kind 
of indicators.
    And you heard one of the other panelists already testify 
that consumers of color are disproportionately credit 
invisible. So, just the systems that we have in place in order 
to give people an entrance into the financial mainstream are 
blocking folks out because those systems do not work for 
underserved communities.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you, Ms. Rice.
    I am not sure how much time I have, but I just want folks 
on the panel and just the public to notice that none of this 
discrimination that we are talking about today is explicitly 
spelled out in some sort of company handbook, but it is all 
implicit and cloaked in, like, proxies and codewords and 
misguided assumptions. And its effect, regardless of the 
intent, is to disproportionately deny homeownership 
opportunities to Black and Brown folks.
    We have the tools to fight it. Just last year, though, 
unfortunately, President Trump struck a huge blow to fair-
housing protection with this disparate impact final rule which 
failed to comply with the Supreme Court's Inclusive Communities 
decision. And we need to address that, Mr. Chairman.
    We also know that, as recently as 2015, the Supreme Court 
recognized the continuing availability of disparate impact 
litigation on the Fair Housing Act. We need to restore these 
protections. They are getting watered down by conservative 
courts and decisions. And so, I just hope our subcommittee can 
proceed and be very intentional about addressing this 
discrimination that leaves a lot of my residents out of 
opportunities for economic stability.
    Thank you, and I yield back.
    Chairman Green. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    We will now hear from Mr. Mooney from West Virginia for 5 
minutes, and then, we will take our break. So if you are after 
Mr. Mooney, you might want to go cast your vote now. And we 
will cast our second vote as well. That is two votes before we 
return.
    So, please, now, Mr. Mooney, you are now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Mooney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    My concerns are going to address access to rural banking, 
generally speaking. And I am going to direct a question to Ms. 
Cooper. But I want to highlight some of the concerns related to 
getting my constituents in rural West Virginia, and others, 
access to loans, credit, and banking, any and all banking 
services in general.
    According to a survey by the FDIC, 7.8 percent of West 
Virginia households are unbanked. This puts West Virginia in 
the bottom 10 in the nation in terms of unbanked households.
    Ms. Cooper, what can we do to help rural Americans get 
access to credit and basic financial services?
    And just as a quick follow-up to that, after you answer 
that one, how do you feel the COVID-19 pandemic has affected 
efforts to reach the unbanked?
    Ms. Cooper. Thank you so much for your questions, 
Congressman.
    So, yes, in general, I know we have already spoken about 
this, and in my oral and written statements I have mentioned, 
kind of, the geographic disparity, the fact that research 
suggests consumers living in rural areas may be living farther 
from bank branches, and are less likely to have access to high-
speed internet, and these reasons might make it more difficult 
for them to access quality banking services.
    In general, in my written testimony, I talk about some 
policy options that are often discussed in this space just 
generally to increase access to credit to consumers.
    And there are five broad types of policy approaches in this 
space: first, possible changes to bank regulation to further 
encourage banks to serve underserved communities; second, 
payment system improvements that may make bank products more 
attractive; third, financial technologies to potentially 
increase access to consumers; fourth, the government directly 
providing certain financial products directly to consumers; and 
fifth, financial education programs.
    And I would say, in terms of all of these policy options, 
they all have costs and benefits and potential unintended 
impacts and risks, but they are all things that could be 
potential places to explore in this space if you are interested 
in expanding access to credit.
    Thank you so much. And then your second question was around 
the COVID-19 pandemic? Is that correct?
    Mr. Mooney. That is correct, how you feel that affects 
efforts to reach the unbanked?
    Ms. Cooper. Yes. Thank you so much for that question.
    I am actually not aware of that much data, since the COVID-
19 pandemic is something that has happened in this past year, 
and the FDIC's survey that they do regularly was most recently 
done in 2019.
    But, yes, I think at least at the beginning of the 
pandemic, there were a lot of reports of more people accessing 
banking services online, given the pandemic. That pattern makes 
sense. So, I do think that is an interesting trend in this 
space.
    Mr. Mooney. Okay.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Green. The gentleman yields back.
    At this time, we will stand in recess for the Members to 
cast two votes and then return.
    [brief recess]
    Chairman Green. Thank you, everyone, for your patience, 
especially our witnesses. Thank you so much. It is not unusual 
for Members to have to rush out and vote, and we try to do it 
as expeditiously as possible, because we know that your time is 
very valuable
    Let me just see if Mr. Garcia of Illinois is present.
    Mr. Garcia, are you with us? If so, I will yield 5 minutes 
to you for your questions.
    We will stand in recess for a bit longer. We are awaiting 
the arrival of our ranking member and additional members, so 
please be a little bit patient with us. Thank you so much.
    [brief recess]
    Chairman Green. Friends, just to give you a quick update, 
we are not waiting on Mr. Garcia, so that you won't think that 
we are. We are waiting on our ranking member, Mr. Barr. I 
assume that he will be arriving shortly, so please continue to 
be patient with us while we await his arrival.
    Mr. Garcia of Illinois. And Mr. Garcia is on standby, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Green. Yes, sir. I have noted that you are here. 
As soon as Mr. Barr arrives, we will come right to you. Thank 
you so much, Mr. Garcia.
    Friends, if I may have your attention, please, the hearing 
will now return to order.
    We will continue with questions. And next in order for 
questions will be Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Mr. Garcia, you are 
recognized for 5 minutes to ask your questions.
    Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, 
for convening this important meeting.
    When we talk about wealth in this country and opportunities 
to build wealth, we have to talk about housing. So when I think 
about the wealth gap, I think about neighborhoods like mine. I 
represent a working class, mostly Latino community in Chicago. 
I have lived here for more than 50 years. Most of my 
constituents are renters, and the housing crisis they are 
facing now under COVID-19 isn't new.
    My neighbors are squeezed. On the one hand, our community 
can't get the investment they need. On the other hand, working-
class Latino and Black people are being pushed out of their own 
neighborhoods by wealthier White residents who do have access 
to capital. So, I am glad to talk with you today to learn more 
about what is driving that and what we can do to support 
working-class communities and communities of color especially. 
I thank all of the witnesses for being here.
    I would like to ask Ms. Espinoza a question on bank 
mergers. This country had 12,000 banks in 1990, and now it has 
fewer than 5,000. The Fed and the Department of Justice rubber-
stamped bank merger applications without a second thought, even 
though mergers can often close down local bank branches and 
leave communities underserved.
    Do you find that consolidation in the banking industry has 
a negative impact on marginalized communities, and does it hurt 
access to credit in communities like mine?
    Ms. Espinoza. It does hurt access to credit, and one of the 
things that we have seen here with the bank mergers is that the 
Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) requirements don't change when 
banks merge. Instead of them having to do twice the amount, for 
example, by merging, they are actually having to do less under 
the CRA. So, it is definitely hurting people, and it hurts 
people of color because as they merge, they seem to close down 
branches in minority neighborhoods that are predominantly 
African American and Latino.
    Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Okay. Thank you.
    Mr. Perry, in your testimony, you mentioned recent high-
profile instances of the appraisal gap, that is, when a 
family's home is appraised at a low value because of racial 
discrimination. This is a huge problem in my City of Chicago.
    Could you talk a little bit more about how the appraisal 
gap hurts communities that have always had a hard time getting 
loans, and what can Congress and housing advocates do to get 
help?
    Mr. Perry. Yes, that is a difficult one, because Congress 
does not authorize appraisals. However, there are some key 
areas that we know are at fault. We know that the price 
comparison model in which homes are compared to other homes in 
similar neighborhoods essentially recycles racism, because if 
you are essentially measuring homes against other homes that 
have been impacted by discrimination, you really never get a 
sense of values.
    The other area that is clear that home improvements are not 
treated the same in Black and Brown communities as they are in 
White communities, and we see that time and time again.
    And there is one other area, and this is the area--the 
Dodd-Frank Act created an arm's-length relationship between 
appraisers and lenders, and it seems that in some communities, 
it is very strict, where lenders and appraisers don't talk at 
all, and it results in loans falling through, where in White 
communities, there seems to be enough communication to come to 
an agreed-upon price. And so those are the three areas where I 
see of some of the biggest problems.
    Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chairman, I don't have any more questions at this time. 
I have to go vote.
    Chairman Green. The gentleman yields back. Thank you, Mr. 
Garcia.
    The Chair now recognizes the vice ranking member, Mr. 
Timmons from South Carolina, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Cooper, since the 1990s, the median wealth among 
minority families has plateaued, while it has increased roughly 
50 percent for White families. This is a huge problem, as White 
families on average now have 41 times the wealth of Black 
families and 22 times the wealth of Latino families. I think we 
can all agree that that is a major problem.
    A friend of mine, who is Black, explained it to me in a way 
that really stuck with me. He said, imagine a game of monopoly. 
Certain families have been playing for generations. They have 
been passing go, collecting $200. They have been purchasing 
property, building houses, building hotels, buying the 
railroads, and certain families have started much later. And it 
is challenging to play the game, it is challenging to compete, 
it is challenging to have a chance when you are faced with 
those kind of odds.
    So, a racial wealth gap has always been an issue. But why 
has it gotten worse over the last few decades, and does it have 
anything to do with lending practices of financial 
institutions?
    Ms. Cooper. Thanks for that question. As I was saying in my 
oral testimony, as you were describing, research suggests that 
disparities in family wealth or in community relationships with 
financial institutions can potentially persist across 
generations. For example, from parents to children, influencing 
children's financial outcomes, so, for example, children's 
credit history or homeownership status. And in this way, past 
discrimination can cause intergenerational effects, and as I 
described, these disparities exist in terms of access to 
financial products.
    I will say in general, I am not aware of research around 
increases or decreases in some of these disparities. Over time, 
a lot of this research, particularly around intergenerational 
effects, is relatively new. But I would be happy to do some 
more research on that question and get back to you.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you.
    Mr. Darity. I would like to comment on this, if I may, to 
say that the widening gap that we have observed is in part 
attributable to the adverse effects of the Great Recession, but 
more significantly is due to the cumulative nature of wealth 
accumulation and decumulation across generations. That is to 
say, wealth begets wealth and lack of wealth begets lack of 
wealth.
    And so communities that have been subjected to denial and 
deprivation have less of an opportunity to transfer resources 
across generations and, therefore, we observe a widening gap 
over the course of time. It is a fact that is associated with 
the very way in which people acquire additional assets.
    Mr. Timmons. Sure. And, Mr. Darity, let me follow up on 
that. I appreciate you jumping in.
    Mr. Darity. Yes.
    Mr. Timmons. Would you agree that it is a worthy endeavor 
to try to find ways to give people opportunities, who have not 
had opportunities in the past, without necessarily putting 
people who do not fall into that category at a disadvantage?
    I am in the military. I am in the South Carolina Air 
National Guard, and we talk a lot about these issues, and the 
question becomes, not everyone is in the same box, and if you 
are going to try to give people opportunities who have not had 
opportunities in the past, that is a worthy endeavor, and I 
actually support that. My concern is that there are people who 
would be lumped in with the people who theoretically have had 
opportunities, who really haven't had opportunities.
    So while we look at these statistics, and I agree they are 
actually quite terrible and we need to take steps, the question 
is, if someone is not necessarily in the bucket of, wealth 
begets wealth, they are struggling just like anyone else, how 
do we not disadvantage that person? Does that question make 
sense to you, sir?
    Mr. Darity. It makes sense to me, but I think that we have 
to recognize that those differences in opportunity historically 
have been racialized to the point that Whites who are in the 
bottom 20 percent of the income distribution have a higher 
median level of wealth than all Black Americans taken together. 
And so, I would argue that there is a racial differential that 
needs to be addressed.
    Mr. Timmons. And I will do everything I can to help address 
that, because I do agree with you, in large part.
    And I guess my next question is, would you segment out--
    Chairman Green. The gentleman's time has expired. Excuse 
me. I'm sorry.
    Mr. Timmons. Oh, I will yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank 
you.
    Chairman Green. Okay. Because we are trying to end before 
this next vote. The gentleman's time has expired.
    And we will move on now to Ms. Garcia of Texas. You are now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 
so much for hosting this hearing.
    And thank you to all of the witnesses. And most of all, 
thank you for your patience as we struggle through these votes.
    I want to start with Ms. Rice. Ms. Rice, the Center for 
Investigative Reporting report revealed that out of 31 million 
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act records, that modern-day redlining 
still exists in 61 metro areas in our country. As compared to 
White borrowers, lenders denied African-American borrowers in 
significantly higher rates in 48 cities, Latinos in 25 cities, 
Asian Americans in 9 cities, and Native Americans in 3 cities.
    Still, 98 percent of the banks nationally received a 
passing grade in the Community Reinvestment Act examination. 
What is wrong here? Do you think that we need to redo how we 
grade for the Community Reinvestment Act, and would moving from 
a pass/fail system to a more transparent letter grade be 
better?
    Ms. Rice. Thank you so much, Congresswoman Garcia, for that 
question. One of the challenges that we face with the Community 
Reinvestment Act and the CRA examinations is that it is not 
automatically a given that if there are fair-lending violations 
at a financial institution, that it will translate into a lower 
score for the financial institution.
    And so, oftentimes, fair-lending violations are not even 
considered in terms of being reflected in the ultimate score 
for the financial institution. And that is why you have seen, 
since 1977, when the Community Reinvestment Act was enacted, 
multiple examples over and over again of financial institutions 
who have been found to violate the Fair Housing Act, they have 
been found to have engaged in discrimination, and received an 
outstanding CRA grade.
    Part of that is because CRA is tied to income. The 
Community Reinvestment Act says that lenders are supposed to be 
meeting the credit needs of their entire delineated community, 
including low-income areas. And it just depends on the guidance 
at the regulatory agencies at the particular time, but for some 
reason, the part that says that the banks are supposed to meet 
the credit needs of their entire community--somehow, 
communities of color don't get picked up in that definition.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. Should we look at other punishment, if 
you will? Should we look at criminal sanctions for intentional 
discrimination by the landlords, the builders, the mortgage 
companies?
    Ms. Rice. We can certainly look at that, whether or not 
there should be criminal violations. But I think one of the 
first steps that should be taken is we should add race as a 
consideration explicitly in the Community Reinvestment Act, so 
it makes it clear that lenders cannot redline communities of 
color, they cannot avoid serving communities of color in order 
to get the higher grades in the CRA designations.
    And also, lenders should be required to include communities 
of color in their service area. In other words, you shouldn't 
be able to carve out neighborhoods of color when you are 
designating what is your service area.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. Okay. But as my colleague, Ms. Tlaib, 
mentioned, nobody goes around and says, ``Okay neighborhood A, 
you are being redlined.'' It is a lot more subtle. And with 
algorithms and the technology that is being used now, it is 
hard to find, and it is hard to find the appropriate 
enforcement tool. But thank you for that.
    And I wanted to ask quickly, Ms. Espinoza, because I know I 
am running out of time, you mentioned the three different kinds 
of testing that you all do and look at. I think you said there 
was rental testing, self testing, and mortgage testing. How 
complicated is that, and about how much money do you all need 
for more testing so that we can more easily prove some of these 
cases?
    Ms. Espinoza. Well--
    Chairman Green. If I may, Ms. Espinoza, the gentlelady's 
time has expired, and we are trying to get back for the next 
vote.
    Ms. Espinoza. Oh, okay. I can address that in writing.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. Thank you, Ms. Espinoza.
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman. I apologize.
    Chairman Green. That is quite all right. We are trying to 
get to everybody.
    We will now go to Ms. Williams from Georgia for 5 minutes. 
And my apologies to everyone, but we do want to finish before 
the next vote.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you, Chairman Green, and 
thank you for convening this hearing today.
    In my district and across the country, we see racial wealth 
disparities brought on by barriers like invidious 
discrimination. In 2019, the median wealth in Black households 
was about $24,000, compared to $188,000 for White households, 
with the gaps sure to continue to widen because of the 
disproportionate impact of COVID-19.
    I have an obligation in Congress to work to break down 
these barriers and ensure communities of color have a fair 
chance to buy homes, start their own businesses, and even send 
their kids to college without taking on the massive debt that I 
have had to incur. When fewer of us face barriers to building 
wealth and long-term prosperity, the better off our economy, 
our communities, and our people will be.
    Professor Darity, student debt certainly stands in the way 
of closing the racial wealth gap, but in your testimony, you 
mention that there are some limitations to focusing exclusively 
on debt reduction. What are some next steps that we should 
consider from an asset-building perspective to lessen the 
financial burden of things like going to college for 
communities of color?
    Mr. Darity. Historically, the United States has practiced 
asset-building policies. Representative of these are the 19th 
Century policies that involved land allocation. In the 20th 
Century, the policies were focused primarily on supporting 
homeownership.
    I would argue, though, that since the 1960s, the entire 
emphasis of Federal policy has been on income supports rather 
than wealth building or asset building. And so, if we are 
really concerned about improving opportunities for all 
Americans to engage in the widest range of opportunities, there 
needs to be a shift back towards asset-building opportunities.
    And I would think that if we are thinking about individuals 
having an opportunity to go to college and to leave college on 
a debt-free basis, either we have to eliminate the expense of 
attending college altogether, as some people have advocated 
zero tuition for attending State universities. I think that is 
an idea that should be explored.
    But on the other hand, I think that we tend to think about 
education as driving wealth, but we really should think about 
wealth as driving educational achievement. So, if we could 
alter the foundation for assets that are held by a large number 
of wealth-poor families in the United States, we would create 
greater opportunities for their kids to go further in school 
and not have to do so on the basis of the acquisition of 
extraordinary levels of indebtedness.
    Mr. Perry. And, Representative Williams, I just wanted to 
add that there are a number of innovative products going on 
right now which are enabling people to get a mortgage and 
cancel a student loan debt at the same time, and I think those 
are the kind of products we need to see in communities.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you so much.
    And, Professor Darity, I appreciate that.
    Ms. Rice, I do have a quick question for you. As we have 
heard today, we must break down the discriminatory barriers to 
things like owning a home if we really want to close the racial 
wealth gap. In your testimony, you offered some suggestions to 
increase diversity in the real estate industry. Do you have any 
additional recommendations for increasing diversity in other 
parts of the financial services industry that impact how 
communities of color access housing?
    Ms. Rice. Yes, absolutely. One of the first things we have 
to do is break down barriers to credit access and the 
overreliance on things like credit scores. Credit scores are a 
major factor that preclude people of color from being able to 
access financial services. People of color disproportionately 
live in credit deserts. They also disproportionately live in 
communities where there is a hyper concentration of 
nontraditional financial services providers who do not report 
positive behavior to the credit repositories.
    So, that is a huge thing that we need to break down, and we 
can actually use new artificially intelligent tools in order to 
do that. But we do need more support from regulators and 
Congress in order to onboard those new debiasing, tech 
debiasing methodologies so that we can expand opportunities for 
people.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you.
    Ms. Cooper. And I will just--
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. We are out of time, because we 
only get 5 minutes, but I appreciate everyone being here today. 
And I look forward to working with everyone on the subcommittee 
as we continue to address these disparities.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my 
time.
    Chairman Green. And thank you very much for being a little 
bit conscious of the time. I greatly appreciate it.
    Let me move expeditiously and yield myself 5 minutes, so 
that we may quickly get to the next vote.
    I was here in 2008 when we had the downturn in the economy, 
and one of the questions that we asked quite consistently was, 
would anyone go to jail for the predatory lending that took 
place? The answer to the question is, yes, someone did: one 
person. One person went to jail for that long line of predatory 
lending that took place. In fact, we had one CEO of a major 
bank who settled out of court with the Justice Department, and 
the bank's board of directors gave this CEO a 74 percent raise 
in salary, amounting to about $20 million.
    So, the question becomes this: Do we want to continue to 
allow persons who make loan applications to be punished 
criminally for falsifying information on a loan application 
while the loan originator does not face any charges if the loan 
originator denies a person credit? That is predatory lending, 
by the way. If you intentionally deny a person credit who is 
qualified for that credit, you are engaging in predatory 
lending, which is a crime.
    But the question becomes, how do we deal with it? And 
testing is the means by which we can acquire the empirical 
evidence necessary to prosecute these crimes.
    Let me start with you, Ms. Rice. Would you give me some 
indication as to how efficacious testing is, in your opinion, 
with reference to bringing forth the empirical evidence 
necessary to prosecute?
    Ms. Rice. Testing is extremely efficacious for that 
purpose. And thank you so much, Congressman Green, for that 
question. The Supreme Court actually has stated that testing is 
one of the most verifiable and efficient ways of ferreting out 
discrimination.
    Part of the challenge though, is that we don't have 
sufficient funding to support testing in the United States, and 
it is private fair housing organizations who engage in testing 
in a consistent fashion, as you have heard Frances Espinoza 
already testify to. But the challenge is that, some years we 
have very, very little funding to support testing and in some 
years we have more funding, but we never have sufficient 
funding.
    The other thing that--
    Chairman Green. Let me intercede for just a quick second. I 
am familiar with the Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) 
and the Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP). Here is 
something that is important. In H.R. 166, we provide for, in 
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an entity to 
conduct these tests. We want to formalize it to a greater 
degree.
    I still support FHIP and FHAP. That is a great program, so 
I am going to support it. But what I would like to know is, if 
we put this together with the CFPB, does that give you some 
greater degree of belief that we can police and deter those who 
would intentionally deny people loans? Ms. Rice?
    Ms. Rice. Yes, I do. And we vehemently support the bill 
that you referenced, the Fair Lending for All Act. It 
definitely will, and it is important for Congress to include 
protections, guardrails, so that the testing program can be 
ongoing no matter who is in control or who is at the helm of 
the organization.
    Chairman Green. Let me move quickly to Ms. Espinoza. Ms. 
Espinoza, would you agree that testing is an efficacious 
methodology, and would you support H.R. 166 as we propose 
having testing take place through the CFPB?
    Ms. Espinoza. Yes. Testing is the best way to uncover these 
predatory practices in fair housing investigations, so I do 
support--
    Chairman Green. Okay. And let me ask Mr. Perry, would you 
agree as well?
    Mr. Perry. Yes. And, in fact, journalists and individuals 
are doing it.
    Chairman Green. I hate to do this to you, but I am going to 
have to accept your yes, because I am running out of time.
    Mr. Perry. Yes.
    Chairman Green. And I can't be unfair to others by giving 
myself more time.
    Just let me say, Professor, I am very much familiar with 
Andrew Johnson and what happened, especially as it relates to 
him in 1868 when there was an effort to impeach him. I would 
add that he was the bigot of his time, and he denied the newly 
free persons the opportunity to start to amass wealth with the 
land that would have been accorded them. I can only say this, I 
don't pretend to say that this is the silver bullet, but this 
will at least help us with some of the credit issues. I do 
agree with you that the wealth issue is something that is 
paramount for us.
    With that said, my time has expired, friends. I do 
appreciate all of the witnesses for being here today. Your 
being here and being patient with us has meant a lot to us. I 
regret that we had to intercede with votes, but these things 
happen, and we now have another vote that we have to deal with. 
So thank you, all of you.
    The hearing is now adjourned, after I read a statement, 
excuse me. There is a statement that I have to read before we 
can adjourn this hearing, so please be patient as I move to the 
statement.
    I thank the witnesses for their testimony and for devoting 
their time and resources to share their expertise with this 
subcommittee. Their testimony today will help to advance the 
important work of this subcommittee and of Congress in 
addressing lending discrimination and systemic racial 
inequality.
    The Chair notes that some Members may have additional 
questions for this panel, which they may wish to submit in 
writing. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open 
for 5 legislative days for Members to submit written questions 
to these witnesses and to place their responses in the record. 
Also, without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days 
to submit extraneous materials to the Chair for inclusion in 
the record.
    This hearing is now adjourned. Thank you so much.
    [Whereupon, at 5:23 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                            A P P E N D I X



                           February 24, 2021
                           
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