The vast majority of both Republicans and Democrats who said they plan to vote in the 2020 presidential primary support legislation rolled out by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders last week that would cap credit card interest rates at 15% .
Nearly 70% of Republican primary voters and 73% of Democratic primary voters said they either support or strongly support the proposal to cap rates at 15%, according to a new INSIDER poll. Just over 60% of respondents who don’t plan to vote in the 2020 presidential primaries also said they support the bill, known as the Loan Shark Prevention Act.
Just 13% of GOP primary voters were opposed to the idea, while 7% of Democratic primary voters were opposed.
INSIDER specifically asked Americans whether they support or oppose a law that would cap credit card interest rates at 15%, noting that the current median interest rate for a credit card is about 21.36%.
Overall, about 68% of respondents said they either support or strongly support the plan and 10% oppose it.
Support for the cap was consistent across income levels, but higher-income respondents appeared to support the proposal more strongly than the average respondent – though the sample size was too small to draw any specific conclusions.
Under the proposed law, the annual percentage rate applicable to any extension of credit would be capped at 15% on “unpaid balances, inclusive of all finance charges” or “the maximum rate permitted by the laws of the State in which the consumer resides.”
In short, the bill would impose the cap on credit-card interest rates at the federal level and allow states to establish even lower interest rates. The bill would also give the Federal Reserve flexibility to allow lenders to charge higher rates if it’s determined the federal cap “would threaten the safety and soundness of financial institutions.”
The median credit-card interest rate was 21.36% as of last week, compared with 12.62% a decade ago, according to Creditcards.com. Meanwhile, Americans collectively hold more than $1 trillion in credit-card debt, according to the Federal Reserve.
The law would implement a 15% interest rate cap on all federal loans and also institute postal banking – allowing the US postal service to offer banking services as an alternative to payday lenders and commercial banks.
SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn’t try to weight its sample based on race or income. This survey had a total 1,127 respondents, a margin of error plus or minus 3.12 percentage points with a 95% confidence level.