A couple years ago, some of my colleagues at USC set out to answer an old question with a new twist. They wanted to know how many jobs you could find if you lived in a low-income neighborhood. Specifically, they wanted to know how many jobs you could commute to.

Most Americans take it for granted that employment is place-based. You can’t work at a building that’s too far away. But what happens when you can only afford to live in a few of neighborhoods in a city, a reality that many low-income families face? How many jobs are too far away?

In my last post, I talked about the predatory lending schemes that ensnared homeowners during the recent bubble, and I argued that we can prevent another financial disaster by giving borrowers access to affordable credit that won’t bankrupt them in their quest for the American dream. Baradaran’s story shows that it’s possible.

We live in a world where people who need credit the most have the least access to it—a world where “the less money you have, the more you pay to use it,” says Baradaran.