A new bipartisan poll conducted by Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting found that large majorities of Americans across the political spectrum approve of the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as the agency nears its fifth anniversary.
Generally speaking, American say financial regulation is important, with 92 percent saying it is important, including 72 percent who said it was very important. That breakdown crosses party lines as well, with 96 percent of Democrats and 89 percent of Republicans in the survey saying regulation is important.
And although the positive figures for the CFPB come after the agency is described, which can be influenced by the way the pollster is describing the bureau, the most enlightening results came in a question which presented survey respondents with two different versions of the CFPB.
When presented with an argument that the CFPB makes rules to protect consumers from dangerous financial products against the argument that the bureau is an unaccountable bureaucracy and an example of job-killing big government, 64 percent of respondents still supported the bureau, including nearly half of Republicans (46 percent). Support reached 79 percent among Democrats and 67 percent among independents.
When the CFPB’s purpose and mission were described, 71 percent of respondents favored the CFPB, including 59 percent of Republicans and 81 percent of Democrats. When the Consumer Financial Protection Act (which instituted the bureau) was described, three-quarters of respondents favored the law, including 65 percent of Republicans.
But respondents also believe there remains plenty of work to be done to address practices stemming from the Great Recession, and there is a great skepticism still about Wall Street financial participants.
Only 12 percent of respondents said that Wall Street’s behavior has changed sufficiently, while 60 percent still regard Wall Street as a threat to the economy, and only a quarter said government intervention in the financial industry had gone far enough.
Support for stronger rules stretched across party lines, with 82 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of Republicans supporting stronger rules.
Survey respondents appeared to show support for some of the CFPB’s most high-profile recent initiatives as well. A total of 70 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of Republicans said they approve of the CFPB’s efforts to restore the ability of financial consumers to band together in lawsuits against banks and lenders that engage in wrongdoing. The CFPB has proposed rules that would prohibit arbitration clauses from containing waivers banning class-action lawsuits, among other provisions.
Two-thirds of respondents support CFPB rules requiring verification of a consumer’s ability to repay (ATR) when securing a mortgage. The strongest support for tighter requirements came from Republicans, with 71 percent supporting tighter rules, and 46 percent saying they felt strongly about it. The CFPB’s ATR/Qualified Mortgages rules have been in place since January 2014.
More than two-thirds of respondents (67 percent) said they had an unfavorable view of payday lenders, compared with 10 percent who held favorable views. The CFPB announced proposed rules for small-dollar lending this spring, regulations primarily targeting the payday lending industry.
And finally, 84 percent of respondents said they were concerned that debt collectors sue about a million consumers each year without evidence to prove their case in court. That includes 78 percent of Republicans, again, showing support across party lines. The CFPB will hold a field hearing on debt collection at the end of the month; the bureau has long stated it would be starting a rulemaking process concerning the debt collection industry.
The survey was conducted in June on behalf of Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending.