The bill—misleadingly titled “Protecting Consumers’ Access to Credit Act of 2017”—claims to be a response to a recent federal court decision in a case called Madden v. Midland. Ms. Madden opened a credit card; when she fell behind on payments, it was sold to Midland Funding, a debt collector. Midland tried to charge her an interest rate of 27 percent, higher than New York’s legal limit of 25 percent, and the judge ruled that while banks are not subject to state interest rate caps—consistent with rulings going back several decades that led to the rapid growth of credit cards—nonbanks, such as a debt collector, are. The decision was reached by the Second Circuit, and only applies to New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.

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In the bill, both houses of Congress have proposed a so-called “Madden fix” that would declare that any valid loan made by a bank stays valid if that loan is later sold or transferred to a nonbank. On its face, that sounds fair—until it’s clear that this is exactly the business model, sometimes called rent-a-bank, that payday lenders have historically used to get around state consumer protection laws. Under rent-a-bank, in a state that caps annual interest rates at 36 percent or less—a level considered the maximum for responsible lending for about a century—a loan shark shut out of the market can just partner with a national bank that’s subject to no limits on interest rates at all, and charge consumers more than 300 percent annual interest or more. This practice goes back two decades, and federal banking regulators have been grappling with it just as long.

Getting around state laws also means skirting the will of Americans that have elected to keep predatory lenders out of their states. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia—representing more than 90 million Americans—have set interest rate caps to keep payday lenders at bay. South Dakota joined this club in 2016 with a ballot initiative receiving more than 76 percent of the vote, despite confusing, contradictory language on the ballots. Seventy-two percent of Montanans voted for a cap in 2010. And faith leaders across the country have decried the practice—some even using their own community assistance funds to bail out borrowers trapped in debt.

Even in states where payday lending is not restricted with a rate cap, forty-two states have interest rate caps in place for some other types of loans, such as installment loans, which are generally paid back over a longer period of time. It’s no surprise that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) 2017 payday lending rule specifically called out rate caps as providing better protections than what it could do itself to deal with debt trap lending. (The Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB, specifically bans the agency from capping rates itself.)

Taking away states’ ability to pass and enforce laws that protect their residents from loansharking might not be so devastating if a tough federal standard existed in their place. But this January, CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney delayed the final payday rule, which only dealt with certain aspects of predatory lending, with an eye toward weakening or scrapping it altogether. New Trump-appointed leadership at the banking regulators are not likely to scrutinize rent-a-bank partnerships the way past regulators have, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, one of these regulators, reversed its restrictions on banks themselves making payday loans last year. The closest Congress has come to taking decisive action to help vulnerable borrowers in recent years was passing the bipartisan Military Lending Act in 2007, which put in place a 36 percent rate cap on servicemembers and their families—and still only survived an effort to weaken it in 2015 by one House committee vote.

To be sure, some nonbank lenders who do not make payday loans have argued that the Madden decision makes it harder for even responsible startups to lend nationwide because investors will not support them if loans may be invalidated under state law. But they have other options, including seeking a federal nonbank charter or simply ensuring that they comply with state law. Supporting a nationwide market should not mean forcing open the doors to financial exploitation by allowing lending without limits.

Should the House bill pass this week, it then goes to the Senate, where a bipartisan group of senators has teamed up to co-sponsor the same bill. In an era of massive tax cuts for the rich and devastating benefit cuts for everyone else, this is merely the latest attempt from Congress to tilt the financial playing field further in favor of corporations and the wealthy, making it even harder for working families to get by.

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau  (CFPB) released new regulations to help take these harmful financial products off the shelf. This rule is expected to help struggling families avoid $8 billion in fees from predatory lenders each year. And yet, it faces an uphill battle—the CFPB will need not only public support for its rule to come to fruition, but also for Congress not to sabotage its efforts and for state legislatures to help push it to the finish line.

These reforms are sorely needed, as payday and title lending turn a profit on the backs of cash-strapped families. In exchange for access to someone’s bank account or a spare set of keys to their car, these lenders typically offer quick cash—anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand—expecting it to be paid back either from the next paycheck or within the next month.

But, many borrowers can’t afford to pay back the loan at the next payday or the end of the month. Instead, 4 out of 5 borrowers have to roll over that loan, or take out another one to pay back the first. The result is that interest and fees pile up, and borrowers are unable to pay down the initial loan even. This can lead to enormous economic hardship. As St. Louis resident Naya Burks found after borrowing $1,000, her loan became a $40,000 debt through interest, fees, and a lawsuit. And as the CFPB’s own research has shown, 1 in 5 car title borrowers lose the car to repossession.

It’s no wonder, then, that faith leaders from all different traditions have spoken out against these loans. The states have taken action as well. As many as 14 states and the District of Columbia have instituted interest rate caps of 36 percent or less to ban these loans. Indeed, in Arkansas, where the state Constitution now puts a ceiling on interest rates, only 12 percent of former borrowers said that they were worse off as a result.

Unfortunately, many members of Congress seem to have missed the memo that these are toxic products that do more harm than good. Florida’s Congressional delegation, among others, has tried to block the CFPB, arguing that the state already has the problem under control—even as lenders take $76 million a year out of the state’s economy. And just last year, Congress tried to weaken tough anti-predatory lending rules that protect service members and also considered hampering the CFPB’s ability to act independently.

The CFPB’s rule will rein in some of the worst practices in this industry. In many circumstances, it will require lenders to figure out whether the borrower is actually able to pay back a loan before making one in the first place. It will limit how many loans borrowers can take out, and when. And it will limit lenders’ ability to pickpocket by seizing funds from borrowers’ bank account over and over without consent.

These strong federal rules are also important because many states haven’t been able to address this problem on their own. Missouri has almost as many payday loan stores as grocery stores, with an an average interest rate on these loans of 444 percent. And in 2014, the Louisiana legislature couldn’t even pass a weak bill limiting payday loans to ten per year. That’s not to mention Ohio, where voters overwhelmingly supported a payday lending ban, but lenders rechartered themselves as mortgage companies through a legal loophole. But states still can take action to curb this abusive practice. They can follow the lead of New York, North Carolina, and others states by capping interest rates, an action of extra importance given that a loophole in Dodd-Frank blocks the CFPB from taking this action. And even states with strong laws on the books need to stand firm when tempted to adopt a looser standard.

Stopping the debt trap won’t happen in a day. But today, the CFPB takes a big step toward taking a toxic product off the shelves. Congress, and the nation, should take notice.

Fortunately, earlier this month at the Center for American Progress, the U.S. Department of Labor announced its final fiduciary rule that would require financial professionals who advise on how to invest retirement savings to act in their clients’ best interest. The fiduciary rule is much more than an obscure legal concept—it’s a commonsense action that closes 40-year-old loopholes in retirement security laws that were left open by Congress. It also returns at least $17 billion a year to American families.

Granted, struggling families are not likely to have access to retirement funds and financial advisers, so some may wonder how this helps low-income Americans. The fact is that faulty advice can leave individuals in poverty when they retire, even if they were able to save for retirement during their working years.

For example, Ruby H. of Philadelphia scrimped for 17 years to put aside $5,000 for retirement, and an adviser helped her grow that amount to $17,000. But when her adviser switched firms, he changed her investments into the ones most advantageous to him, and she lost everything. And Phil Ashburn lost the bulk of his savings after he spent 30 years working for utility companies: first Western Electric in 1972, and finally Pacific Bell. Offered a buyout in 2002, he was recommended to a financial adviser who put the value of his savings—about $355,000—in an expensive variable annuity. However, he ended up with only about 20 percent of those savings following the Great Recession. Meanwhile, the adviser received a commission of roughly 7 percent and ended up making $900,000 that year.

These stories are a painful reminder of why workers face such bleak prospects for retirement. Forty years ago, when the rules on retirement advice were first written, most workers didn’t have to worry about whether they were getting good advice because they weren’t expected to plan for their own retirement. The vast majority of workers with a retirement plan had traditional pensions, which rewarded a lifetime of work with monthly payments for life. There was no need to wade through different investment options and savings strategies. But today, with the erosion of pensions and advent of options that are far less secure, more than half of all working-age households are considered inadequately prepared for retirement, up from 31 percent in 1983.

The rule also reminds us why Social Security is so crucial, particularly in this era of financial uncertainty. Social Security brings the incomes of more than nearly 15 million elderly above the poverty line, cutting senior poverty by three-quarters. And for roughly two-thirds of the elderly, Social Security provides the majority of their retirement income. Future retirees need the assurance that Social Security will be there even if their savings, or their financial adviser, aren’t up to par. Thankfully, as Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) noted during the Department of Labor’s announcement, cutting Social Security is no longer mainstream: “How much should we cut Social Security is such a preposterous proposition except on K Street, except among pundits.”

But while Social Security is safe for now, this fiduciary rule is under attack by some financial firms and their conservative allies. This disagreement isn’t unexpected. As Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has pointed out, there are “17 billion reasons” why special interests oppose the rule—that is, the $17 billion returned to the American people. In fact, from the beginning of discussions around the rule, some industry players have called it unworkable, argued that their voices were not heard, or threatened to sue. House Speaker Paul Ryan has also derided the rule, calling it “Obamacare for financial planning” and seeking to undo it. Given that his stated concern for the poor has often been accompanied by policy proposals to make drastic cuts to the safety net, perhaps this is not surprising. But, as the Department of Labor has stepped in to close loopholes of Congress’ own making after decades of improper financial advice, rolling back the fiduciary rule now will only increase retirees’ vulnerability in the coming years.

Some opponents have even gone so far as to claim that the reform will diminish working families’ access to financial advice because some advisers may stop working with less profitable savers if they cannot charge as much. But the fact is that most working families with small amounts of savings are not served by advisers today to begin with, and may have less trust in the advice that’s given in the first place. This same argument about access is a common defense for other predatory products—whether payday loans or for-profit colleges—in which the real question about access is whether companies can keep their access to the vulnerable consumers whom they grift. Meanwhile, new firms are offering independent, nonconflicted advice at a fraction of the cost, proving that it can indeed be done without ripping off current or future retirees.

This rule is a stark reminder for members of Congress to decide which side they are on: that of savers or of special interests. If they stand with Secretary Tom Perez and those who came out in favor of the rule, they have the opportunity to prevent bad financial advice from cheating more families out of their retirement dollars.

But like a hydra that just keeps regenerating, payday lenders often spring back when states try to rein them in. Take Ohio, for example. After 64 percent of Ohio voters—and a majority in 87 of the Buckeye State’s 88 counties—voted to ban payday lending in 2008, lenders just rechartered themselves as mortgage lenders under state law, despite not making any home loans. And after payday loans were banned in Arizona, lenders switched over to making pricey car title loans. This struggle to regulate lenders at the state level is one of many reasons why the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is working on a proposed rule to curb payday loan abuses.

Unfortunately, some members of Congress from Florida are defending lenders in their race to the bottom. Last year, the entire Florida Congressional delegation, with the exception of Rep. Thomas Rooney (R-FL), sent a letter to the CFPB’s Director Cordray arguing that new rules are unnecessary because Florida’s regulations are “among the most progressive and effective in the nation.” Recently, they went one step further, when twelve Floridians in Congress—seven Republicans and five Democrats—sponsored the so-called Consumer Protection and Choice Act. This bill would block CFPB’s actions for two years.  It would also exempt states from having to adhere to the new CFPB rule if they model their own laws on the Florida regulations. Ten other members co-sponsored the bill, including two Ohioans who apparently missed the results of their state’s 2008 referendum.

If Florida were indeed a model state on regulating abusive lending practices, this legislation might make sense. New York, for example, has a 25 percent interest rate cap, and state officials have also aggressively pursued lenders that try to skirt the law by making illegal loans over the Internet. Indeed, 14 states and the District of Columbia have similar rate caps that protect consumers from dangerous loans. The Pentagon is also a model: under the Military Lending Act, loans to servicemembers and their families are capped at 36 percent annually. But Florida’s annual interest rates average 360 percent, and payday lending drains an estimated $76 million a year from the state’s economy. That’s hardly “progressive and effective,” nor is it a model we should aspire to replicate nationwide.

Indeed, the Florida regulations that some in Congress want other states to follow, such as a 24-hour cooling-off period prior to taking out another loan, by and large don’t work. 85 percent of Florida borrowers take out seven or more loans a year, and almost two-thirds take out at least a dozen loans. That suggests a product that makes financial distress worse, not better. In the words of one Florida borrower from Daytona Beach, “I would take out a payday loan for emergencies and it would take me an entire year to pay it back. I would have to juggle all my other bills, causing more problems than I had in the beginning.”

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While the CFPB’s proposed rule is yet to be announced, it will undoubtedly go farther than states like Florida in stopping these kinds of debt traps. It should require lenders to determine whether the borrower is actually able to pay back the loan—a common-sense approach that can stop financial problems from cascading down the line. And it should ban a lending practice that amounts to legalized pickpocketing: repeated automatic withdrawals from a borrower’s bank account as soon as funds are available, even if the borrower has more important bills to pay. These actions would make it harder to exploit vulnerable borrowers and also complement states’ authority to cap interest rates.

Americans want something done about the payday lenders that are taking money out of the community and causing great financial distress. In fact, every time the issue has gone to the polls—in Ohio and Arizona in 2008, and Montana in 2010—responsible credit has won. It’s time for members of Congress to listen to the will of the people and make it harder for their vulnerable constituents to get ripped off.

In a rare moment of good news, New York City has decided to remove one of these barriers by limiting the use of credit checks for employment screening. Last month, the City Council voted overwhelmingly to pass the strongest measure in the country on this issue, joining ten states. This measure, which Mayor DeBlasio is expected to sign on Wednesday, is a major step forward to rein in a practice that does little for employers while filtering out good employees who run into financial trouble.

Nearly half of employers check credit histories for at least some positions, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. This means that before receiving a job offer, the employer has the ability to comb through your financial history to see if you’ve paid your bills on time, and can choose not to offer you a job if you haven’t. Of course, if you’re having trouble paying your bills—because of a job loss, an illness, an irregular work schedule, or other risks that working families face—being turned down for a job isn’t going to make it easier to pay your bills or improve your credit. And so the cycle continues.

Meanwhile, credit reporting itself has its limitations. Roughly one in five credit reports contains errors, according to an analysis by the Federal Trade Commission. And the information in credit reports only reflects part of a family’s financial situation—the part that tends to reflect better on upper-income folks. Mortgage payments count toward a positive credit history—very significantly—but on-time rent payments don’t. And when low-income families pay their regular bills on time—such as rent and utilities—this positive information generally doesn’t go on credit reports, even though negative information such as late payments, nonpayments, and collections ultimately does get reported. So even when families are trying hard to pay bills on time, these bills don’t count in the same way credit cards and loan payments do.

That’s slowly starting to change. There are efforts underway to improve credit reporting to more accurately reflect credit risk and help more deserving borrowers get affordable loans, including a recent pilot where thousands of low-income families living in affordable housing were able to have their rental payments applied to their credit reports and scores. But in the meantime, families are needlessly hurt by a system that misuses financial information to make hiring decisions that hurt those who are already struggling.

To be sure, New York City’s law does have some exceptions for jobs in government, law enforcement, certain finance and tech jobs, and jobs where the employee is in charge of major financial decisions. For these jobs, one can argue that the fears of theft cited when credit screening tools are pitched to companies are more legitimate. (When I worked at the Treasury Department, for example, a credit check was required.) But the City’s new law goes well beyond other states where, for example, handling a certain amount of cash could be considered an exception. And it comes close to two bills introduced in the last Congress: one bill by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) limiting credit checks to jobs requiring a security clearance, and a bill by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) with added exemptions for some government and banking jobs.

The federal government has been catching on as well. Last fall, the US Department of Labor issued new guidance warning employers that the use of credit reports may be discriminatory. Policies designed to screen for people working in high-level positions shouldn’t apply to most jobs, never mind that even Bernie Madoff probably had a stellar credit history for most of his career.

We should follow New York’s example to keep credit reports where they belong—in the financial marketplace—and not as another barrier to hold people back from jobs and financial security because of past decisions or financial distress.

But when we look at the budgets of struggling families, we often ignore the cost of money itself. Yet the old adage that it takes money to make money is also true in reverse. Without money, it costs money just to deal with money.

The cost of a bank account has gone up in recent years. Only about half as many banks offer free checking accounts as they did in 2009, and the average minimum balance to avoid bank fees reached $723 in 2012, up 23 percent from the previous year. At the same time, not having a bank account—roughly 17 million American adults don’t, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)—can be even more expensive. And policymakers need to factor in these costs when making decisions not just about banking regulations, but a wide range of policies that affect low-income families. Otherwise, struggling families and consumers will continue to lose dollars needlessly.

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Take the case of Natalie Gunshannon, a McDonald’s employee in Pennsylvania.  She sued her local franchise last year when it forced her to receive her wages on a prepaid debit card. This card charged $1.50 for every ATM withdrawal, or $5 to withdraw cash at a bank. It even charged $1 to check the account balance at an ATM, and 75 cents to pay bills online. Depending on how the card was used, it could easily drive someone’s earnings below minimum wage.

In Natalie’s case, using the card made no sense because she already had a free account at a local credit union. But not all low-wage workers have good alternatives like Natalie, and if they decide not to participate in the mainstream banking system, they may ultimately pay even more for simple transactions. Check cashers may charge from 1 to 5 percent of the amount on a paycheck or government benefit check in order to cash it. And many unbanked consumers end up paying again when they need to buy money orders or pay bills in person.

A low-wage worker paid $700 every two weeks, facing a 2 percent check cashing fee, and buying two money orders each month, spends more than $30 per month on financial services.  That means he or she is working nearly an hour each week just to pay the check casher. For many workers, these costs are often even higher.  It’s a slow drip for workers that takes dollars out of every single paycheck, and it adds up to billions of dollars that consumers and families could otherwise spend or save. By simply expanding access to affordable banking services millions of Americans would receive a raise.

Sometimes that slow drip for financial services turns into a catastrophic flood. About two out of every five Americans say that they probably or definitely wouldn’t be able to come up with $2,000 in 30 days to deal with an emergency. That number rises to about two-thirds of lower-income Americans. When faced with financial shortfalls, struggling families may turn to payday lenders for quick cash pledged against the next paycheck, or to auto title lenders who offer cash in exchange for the car title and a spare set of car keys.

These lenders typically charge triple-digit annual interest rates and, not surprisingly, borrowers can’t keep up. Four out of five payday loans is rolled over to a new loan. In Virginia alone, auto title lenders repossessed 13,000 cars in 2012 among borrowers who couldn’t make their payments. In 2007, the Pentagon was so concerned about these loans that they successfully pushed Congress to cap at 36 percent the annual interest rate that can be charged to our troops and their families.  However, bills to extend this cap to everyone have gone nowhere.

Fortunately, many of the solutions to these problems already exist. In its three-year history, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has effectively been a new cop on the beat examining the tricks and traps in the financial marketplace. State and local governments have expanded access to affordable, basic bank accounts and pushed for more affordable prepaid cards for payroll and benefits.  Policymakers are now considering whether to build out public banking options, such as offering more banking services through the post office, as many other countries do. In cities like New York, financial empowerment centers that offer free financial counseling now help struggling families make the most of their money and avoid the rip-offs that make it even harder to get ahead.

Not all of these efforts have succeeded, however. Last year, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) announced an innovative new product called Ventra: a transit farecard that doubled as a prepaid debit card. In theory, this card could have turned every subway and El station into a banking center. But as designed, it was a high-fee card that guaranteed revenue for the CTA and was a bad deal for consumers. It took public pressure to redesign the card’s features and fees and launch a better product. In the meantime, trust was lost.

Yet the occasional step backward shouldn’t stop policymakers from seeking safer, more affordable, and more convenient ways for low-income Americans to manage and save their money. When every dollar counts, we should make sure families are able to keep the dollars that belong to them.