One sensible columnist’s take on the new Washington State law:

Katherine Mangu-Ward wrote a tour-de-force of a feature story in October 2009’s Reason Magazine describing how many people have come to rely on payday loans to make rent or utility payments. Indeed, in many cases, payday loans are the only method that the working poor have to stave off eviction or cancelled electricity. Yet Washington State has now ensured that those same people will no longer be able to appeal to pay day loan shops when they are in a tough spot.