Low to moderate income (LMI) means any census district (or equivalent geographical area defined by the Census Bureau) in which at least 50% of households have an income below 60 percent of the area's median gross income (AMGI) or that has a poverty rate of at least 25%. A low-income census district is an area where more than half of the people living in that census district meet the low-income definition. Therefore, if a census district has 4,000 people living in it and more than 50% of those people are low-income, then the entire census district is also considered low-income. The Community Reinvestment Act was created to encourage lending and other financial activities in all parts of the community where a bank operates, including individuals from the LMI and the geographies of the LMI.
Since the CRA is an income-focused regulation, it is important to know how the activities help the people and geographical areas of the LMI when a bank decides where to allocate its loans, donations, grants and resources for volunteers.
