An advocacy group wants to regulate paid preparers, a state EITC bill advances, and communities suffer without mainstream banking services.

• The Atlantic investigates the social epidemic of “banking deserts” in lower-income communities and communities of color, and its effects on asset-building.
• Local advocates in Cleveland fight to regulate paid tax preparers who prey on low-income workers and encourage the use of local VITA sites as an alternative.
• Maryland advances a bill expanding the EITC for working families and workers under 25 without children.
• Bread for the World explains how asset poverty is a hunger issue and calls for more than the EITC and SNAP to end it.