In recent decades financial deregulation has led to a growth of fees and charges for American consumers. According to Vanderbilt University Professor Devin Fergus, the rise in economic inequality which has stemmed from financial deregulation has disproportionately affected the Black and Latino part of the U.S. public, possibly precipitating a new crisis of democracy.

Devin Fergus is an Assistant Professor of History at Vanderbilt University and is a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center. His current book project is titled Land of the Fee, 1970-2010. It will examine the rise of consumer finance and its impact on the growing wealth gap in America. His first book, Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics (2009) received the Outstanding Academic Book Award of the American Library Association.

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