Credit Card Points Are Being Paid for by the Poor

There was a good discussion here on Hacker News about a study from the Federal Reserve related to this - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34492502

Yes, it is true that people paying with debit and cash get to fund the CC point programs. And how is that, you ask?... It's because the merchant raises prices slightly to cover the higher transaction fees of which a portion goes to fund the point programs (scam) that the CC companies run. Generally, poorer people pay with cash and debit cards.

I might mention that the point programs are just the modern day rebates, but just applied across all purchased items, instead of a select few.

There's some competition. Amex charges the highest interchange fees, and as a result, a lot of places don't take Amex. Ditto with discover

Yes, we already know that it's more expensive to be poor. You aren't going to fix that by twiddling this one tweak.

I really hate to whatabout this, but this is a fight between big box retailers and banks. Someone is bringing in "the poor" because they want to get the public on their side (with an election coming up and a law on the table).

Neither side has much sympathy from me. I've also heard the "they're coming for your credit card rewards" ads. The lazy response from me is to declare a plague on both their houses.