The Community Credit research project explores pathways for trusted collaboration between credit unions and the communities they serve. To understand the experiences of people historically underserved by the consumer financial services industry, we focused in particular on the lived experience of low-income residents in Southern California. As part of a larger, mixed-methods study, in 2022 we conducted 30 semi-structured interviews exploring people’s everyday financial practices and their attitudes toward consumer financial services providers. This data set contains the transcripts from the interviews after excluding any personally identifying data.

All study materials and procedures were approved by the University of California, Irvine Office of Human Research Protections and the Institutional Review Board (protocol ID 20216839). This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2137567. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Interview participants were recruited through the project’s other data collection methods, including community listening sessions, photovoice workshops, and a large-scale survey. Participants were eligible to complete an interview if they live in Orange County or Los Angeles County, are older than 18, and have a combined household income of less than $100,000. Although the interviews are focused on participants’ individual experiences, some participants also speak to their experience working for local nonprofits involved in advocating for financially marginalized people.

Interviews were conducted over the telephone or via the Zoom platform. Every interview began with obtaining informed consent and permission to record. The interviews followed a 10-question script (included in the Question Guide file), although the order of the questions and the depth in which each was discussed varied organically based on the flow of conversation and the degree of detail participants were comfortable with sharing. The average interview time was 54 minutes.

Researchers conducting the interviews are identified as “Interviewer” within the transcripts; research participants are identified as “Participant.” Each speaker tag is accompanied by a time stamp. Interviews are labeled #1–30 and compiled into a single file to allow for global searches of the data. Transcripts from potential participants who were unable to complete the interview questions have been removed.