An article in the New York Sun reports, “Credit card companies offer residents of majority black communities a lower credit limit than residents with the same profile who live in white neighborhoods, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has found.”
The study, “Credit Card Redlining” is by Ethan Cohen-Cole.
Cole found that a 1% increase in the percentage of blacks in an area corresponds to a reduction in available credit of $123. Moreover, moving from an 80%-majority white neighborhood to an 80%-majority black neighborhood reduces credit by an average of $7,357.