Last month, Bank of America foreclosed on a Los Angeles woman and her disabled daughter. Dima Rodriguez had spent thousands of dollars retrofitting her home to accommodate her daughter — who has cerebral palsy — and fell behind on her loan payments. Bank of America gave her a loan modification, and even though Rodriguez had made her trial modification payments for a year, the bank sold her house at auction, right out from under her.

However, Rodriguez and her daughter will get to stay in their home, thanks to some help from Occupy Wall Street protestors:

Desperate, Rodriguez contacted several community groups including Occupy Fights Foreclosures — the battle to save the Rodriguez home began. Suzanne O’Keeffe, with Occupy Fights Forclosures, says the bank didn’t treat the Rodriguez family right. She charged they not only didn’t fill out the proper paperwork to foreclose, they waited too long. [...]

Now, [Rodriguez] is determined not to look back. “It’s time to look forward,” Rodriguez said. “Thank God the bank listened.”

As ThinkProgress reported back in December, Bank of America is taking the Occupy movement’s foreclosure prevention actions seriously, warning employees to be prepared should Occupy make an appearance. Occupy protesters have successfully prevented foreclosures across the country, from Rochester to Minneapolis to Los Angeles.

North Carolina is in the news for its new ban on marriage equality, but there’s something else happening in the Tarheel state today: The Bank of America shareholders meeting is being occupied.

In the recession’s fallout, Bank of America has been a primary target, and the demonstrations at its shareholder meeting are just another in a long list of efforts to combat abusive banking practices. What are they protesting? Here’s a list of the top five reasons that Bank of America is being occupied:

1) Cruel and unusual foreclosure practices.: Bank of America’s foreclosure practices are something out of a science fiction novel. There’s the case of the woman and her disabled daughter who were foreclosed on, even after they’d received a loan modification; there are the homeowners that BofA offered loan modifications to if they erased mean things they said about the bank on Twitter; there’s the man who almost lost his home over an 80 cent typo, the elderly couple who were wrongly foreclosed on for paying their mortgage too early, and the man who had the destroyed remnants of his hurricane ravaged house foreclosed on.

2) Bank of America places Bank of America over its customers: Serious accusations leveled against Bank of America include the claim that Bank of America intentionally blocked its customers from seeking mortgage help (“The bank and its agents routinely pretended to have lost homeowners’ documents, failed to credit payments during trial modifications and intentionally misled homeowners about their eligibility for the program, the complaint alleged”), and that they allow homes to fall apart in areas that are heavily populated by people of color.

3) A ton of fees, for very little reason: Bank of America customers can expect to pay fees for just about anything. Recipients of unemployment insurance can get hit with fees simply for withdrawing their money. Similarly, taxpayers can find themselves paying a fee on withdrawing their tax returns in some states where the returns can be loaded onto pre-paid debit cards.

4) Bank of America is guilty of robo-signing: As recently as last year, Bank of America was still using robo-signing, the practice of approving foreclosures without verifying basic loan information. Instructions came from management to continue robo-signing, despite objections from lower-level staff.

5) While their customers suffer, the CEO at Bank of America is raking it in:
Less than a month ago, we reported that CEO Brian Moynihan got a $7.5 million pay package. Meanwhile, the company’s shareholders saw the stock lose more than half of its value. In fact, Moynihan’s pay quadrupled in 2011.

An Atlanta-area family facing foreclosure was evicted early Wednesday morning as sheriff’s deputies attempted to avoid activists affiliated with the Occupy Our Homes movement. Christine Frazer received a foreclosure notice on her home from One Corporation in October 2011 and has been fighting it in federal court ever since.

Protesters set up camp outside her home in January, but around 3 a.m. Wednesday morning, only one protester was present. At that point, between 25 and 30 sheriff’s deputies descended “from every direction” on the home, a group spokesperson said, and evicted the family. Atlanta’s WSB-TV reports:

Around 3 a.m., deputies turned out in large numbers at the home on Wellhaun Road. Later, members of Occupy Atlanta showed up to rally against the eviction. [...]

Her lawyer, Joshua Davis, said the eviction shouldn’t have happened because of the pending litigation.

“They treated my client like she was some type of drug dealer, some type of criminal, came in as if they were executing a warrant to find drugs. It makes no sense,” Davis said.

According to Occupy Our Homes, four generations of Frazer’s family — including her 83-year-old mother and four-year-old grandson — were evicted in the middle of the night. Sheriff’s deputies then took her dogs to the pound and blocked off the street, refusing to allow anyone to secure the family’s possessions that remained in the house. Frazier was able to stay with a friend but was “completely distressed” throughout the day Wednesday, according to a spokesperson for Occupy Our Homes. Protesters were able to gather and salvage her belongings.

Protesters went to the DeKalb County executive’s office yesterday and were told the sheriff’s department was carrying out a judge’s orders, the spokesperson said, but they received no further information. Occupiers are planning to meet with Frazier this afternoon to discuss how they plan to move forward.

Activists from the 99 Percent Movement took to the streets across America to mark May Day on Tuesday, but their campaign against Wall Street is just beginning. In the month of May, activist groups and religious leaders will again turn their focus to urging customers to move their money from Wall Street banks.

Last week, religious leaders and activists targeted Wells Fargo’s annual meeting, where they protested the bank’s predatory and often discriminatory practices and its lack of accountability for its role in the financial crisis that crippled the American economy. Next week, protesters will target Bank of America’s annual meeting, attempting to call attention to the same problems. Throughout the month, a diverse group of activists will push customers to move their money from Wall Street to community banks and credit unions, according to a press release from New Bottom Line, an organizing group that has dubbed May “Move Our Money Month”:

On May 9, thousands of people associated with the 99% Power Movement — families facing foreclosure, clergy, students, seniors, environmentalists, and others — will descend on Bank of America’s shareholder meeting in Charlotte, NC to urge the bank to keep families in their homes, pay its fair share of taxes, and stop choking democracy through massive campaign contributions. If Bank of America does not enact new policies that are more responsive to the communities it serves, large numbers of customers are expected to close their accounts. [...]

“The 99 percent are making their voices heard by moving their money out of the big banks that wrecked the economy and are doing nothing to fix it. This spring, there will be more people attending bank shareholders meetings than at any point in history and we will see more people severing their relationships with the big banks in favor of smaller institutions that are responsive to community concerns,” said Ilana Berger, Co-Director of The New Bottom Line.

The 99 Percent Movement has successfully targeted Wall Street banks with “Move Your Money” campaigns since last fall, when hundreds of thousands of people switched from large banks to credit unions in October and 40,000 more joined on a single day — known as “Bank Transfer Day” — in early November. Churches and faith leaders joined the cause, targeting banks for dodging taxes and unfair mortgage practices. Churches moved $55 million from Wall Street before Thanksgiving, and San Francisco faith leaders moved another $10 million from Wells Fargo in February.

Such campaigns are expected to have profound impacts on Wall Street’s bottom lines. A Wall Street consulting firm reported in November that the nation’s 10 largest banks could lose as much as $185 billion in deposits over the next year thanks to customer defections, and Bank of America — the activists’ next target — is the most vulnerable among them. According to the report, it could lose 10 percent of its customers and $42 billion by the end of 2012.

Income inequality surged onto the national political radar in 2011, as the 99 Percent Movement focused America on the fact that while the richest Americans’ incomes were skyrocketing, wages remained relatively stagnant for the lower and middle classes. American income inequality is now worse than it is in countries like Ivory Coast and Pakistan, and it may be even worse than it was in Ancient Rome.

That inequality has crushed the middle class and has perilous consequences for the American economy. It is also contributing to another problem: rising debt inequality. As income inequality has risen, the bottom 95 percent of Americans have fallen deeper into debt over the last three decades, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund. The top five percent, meanwhile, have seen their personal debt reduced, CNN Money reports:

In 1983, the bottom 95% had 62 cents of debt for every dollar they earned, according to research by two International Monetary Fund economists. But by 2007, the ratio had soared to $1.48 of debt for every $1 in earnings.

The bottom 95% had incomes of roughly $160,000 or less in 2007, including capital gains.

And then there’s the top 5%. Their debt-to-income level actually fell during the same period, from 76 cents of debt for every dollar earned in 1983, to just 64 cents in 2007.

The contributors to rising income and debt inequality are clear — for the richest Americans, incomes are rising rapidly while tax rates have fallen to historic lows. The rest, however, are increasingly burdened by student loan debt as the cost of college soars, mortgage debt as the prices on their homes have plummeted, and credit card debt as they’ve tried to keep their head above water despite stagnant wages and rising unemployment.

And just as rising income inequality has hampered economic growth, rising debt inequality will threaten the nation’s future, experts say. Both times America had similar levels of debt inequality — in the 1920s and 2000s — crippling financial crises followed. And though the amount of debt held by the bottom 95 percent has shrunk since the end of the recession, that’s largely due to foreclosure and bankruptcy and shouldn’t be taken as a positive sign. “We’re still in similar levels of vulnerability as we were in 2008,” Michael Kumhoff, the report’s author, told CNN.

After a series of protest actions, activists and demonstrators from all over the country gathered in midtown Manhattan’s Bryant Park under the shadow of Bank of America Tower to mark the Occupy Wall Street movement’s May Day general strike. Remaining cognizant of May Day’s roots in a Chicago labor movement 130 years ago — though May 1st went global with International Workers’ Day — demonstrators nonetheless maintained a light spirit, singing, meditating, eating free food and discussing politics and policy. The morning events went down largely without incident, as organizers encouraged protesters to keep moving to avoid arrest. But later in the afternoon, reports and photographs of arrested protesters at a downtown action flooded Twitter.

Here are some photos from Bryant Park:

The 99 Percent Movement is bringing May Day, the worldwide annual celebration of labor, to the United States today with protests in over 135 cities. The theme of the protests is “A Day Without the 99 Percent,” and occupiers are encouraging people to spend the day outside of the U.S. economy. According to the May Day organizing site for New York, “It’s a day to recognize the value of our work, and the power we have to collectively change our working conditions and our world.”

It’s true that the 99 percent make up the majority of workers in all the industries for which America is known. Farming, manufacturing, and transportation, to name just a few, wouldn’t survive without the working people who carry the burden of productivity in those fields. Manufacturing alone makes up 20.3 percent of the labor force. But rewarding those workers is a different question. Currently, there seems good reason for workers to feel they are being under-recognized. Just take a look at these three charts:

1. The 99 percent are extremely productive workers, but aren’t compensated for their productivity. While productivity has been on the rise among workers, average wage and compensation has remained nearly flat. That means while workers are producing more, they’re being compensated the same. This chart from the Economic Policy Institute details the change:

2. Corporations don’t notice income inequality, but workers sure do. The 99 percent may be pivotal in the productivity of a company, but they aren’t reaping any of the benefits of success. This chart from the New York Times illustrates exactly how companies profit while workers do not:

3. Workers who don’t organize are getting the short end of the stick. While productivity goes up and wages stay flat, the middle class sees itself shrinking. This income inequality is in direct correlation to union participation. As union membership falls, the middle class shrinks.

Organizers and protesters around the world will come together to commemorate International Workers Day tomorrow, and they are taking on familiar targets. Large protest actions are planned in more than 115 American cities, where activists will continue the anti-Wall Street message started by the 99 Percent Movement last fall. The action will again center in New York, where protesters have identified 99 targets in Manhattan, including large Wall Street banks like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America.

Wall Street banks are pooling resources and coordinating with each other to plan for the New York City protests and will work with local law enforcement to monitor the protests throughout the day. Though the New York-based banks offered no specifics on how they plan to deal with the protests, one security adviser made the laughable comparison that Wall Street banks — the same ones whose errors include triggering the financial crisis and wrongfully foreclosing on thousands of Americans — were innocent elk defending themselves against attacking wolves, Bloomberg reports:

Banks cooperating on surveillance are like elk fending off wolves in Yellowstone National Park, he said. While other animals try in vain to sprint away alone, elk survive attacks by forming a ring together, he said. [...]

Spokesmen for Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup Inc. (C), Morgan Stanley (MS), UBS AG (UBSN) and Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) wouldn’t describe security measures for the protests. One likened commenting to telling al-Qaeda about the bank’s continuity plans.

That Wall Street banks view themselves as innocent victims of wolf-like predators in the form of protesters is ironic, given that multiple Wall Street insiders have blown the whistle about the financial industry’s predatory practices. In November, a former JPMorgan insider said that exploiting consumers was “the purpose of the banking organization,” a claim seemingly echoed by a Goldman Sachs trader who decried the bank’s “toxic and destructive” culture in which clients were sometimes referred to as “muppets.” Remember, it was Goldman that sold self-described “shitty deals” to its own customers. Other banks have perpetuated fraudulent foreclosure and credit card practices, profited off of student loans, and charged huge fees on customers who were collecting unemployment benefits.

It’s no secret why the banks view the 99 Percent Movement so negatively — the movement took Wall Street’s excesses and abuses to the mainstream, refocusing the national discussion on rising income inequality, exploding student debt, and fraudulent banking practices. That effort will continue tomorrow, when protesters will march through Manhattan and picket various Wall Street banks. They’ll be joined by actions in San Francisco, where protesters will specifically target Wells Fargo, as well as in other cities around the country. More events will take place around the world, in cities like London, Sydney, Toronto, and Barcelona.