Seductively Easy, Payday Loans Often Snowball – New York Times:
Apparently these are a huge problem in New Mexico. They’re legal around here, and I think it’s a fair gauge of the economic deterioration of a community — the more payday loan places you see in the strip malls, the deeper trouble that neighborhood is in.
After I moved to Wisconsin from New Jersey, I begun to notice more and more of these loan places. Perhaps New Jersey is one of the 11 states mentioned in the article which bans the practice.
I think there is a cycle involved here which has, as you say, caused a fair amount of economic deterioration. When there is more and more easy credit available, the cost of living in an area starts to rise. When the cost of living rises, people become more desperate to maintain their standard of living and must patronize these places. So, people who would otherwise constrain their spending to income are forced to rely on these loan sharks.