Who is Watching Out for Consumers?

New leadership at Consumer Bureau changes focus: Will it be a win for consumers?

Andy Spears
2 min readMar 2, 2022
Photo by Joshua Sukoff on Unsplash

When a new President takes office, it means new leadership at key institutions in government. In the case of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), President Joe Biden selected Rohit Chopra to take over a bureau that had been formed by Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama but under President Trump, had turned into a friend of the very industries it was meant to regulate.

Consumer Groups Praise Chopra Pick | by Andy Spears | Medium

Advocates for consumers were initially hopeful that Chopra’s selection would signal a change in direction. Just over a year after the announcement that Chopra would head the agency tasked with protecting consumers interacting with a range of financial institutions, those same groups are seemingly beyond thrilled with the results.

Among those heaping praise on Chopra and the “new look” CFPB is Ed Mierzwinski of U.S. PIRG. In a recent blog post, Mierzwinski notes that the CFPB is taking on a number of key battles on behalf of consumers.

Yesterday’s announcement of a new report finding stupefying amounts of medical debt on consumer credit reports continues the Biden Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s focus on…

--

--

Andy Spears

Writer and policy advocate living in Nashville, TN —Public Policy Ph.D. — writes on education policy, consumer affairs, and more . . .