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Mykle Ykle

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Should employers not hire you or fire you when they discover your bad credit history?

It has been a sad situation for me and many others in the USA (I don't know if this is an issue worldwide) I have great qualifications and work experience. Yet, in the majority of states you are obligated to submit to a criminal background check which is completely understandable, but that also includes a credit check. I understand that a credit check should be mandatory for executive, banking, casinos and industries directly involving money. Sadly, those of us with bad credit are being discriminated for regular jobs i.e. retail, call centers, customer service.

The government, banks and debt collectors wants their money, as they should. Yet, if you have bad credit, it's a lot harder to find a job making it impossible to get out of debt, let alone be a productive citizen.

This is an issue that is not widely discussed, I've searched online and there are some bills being proposed to end this discrimination but I don't think is really going anywhere.

I would like to have the TED community input in the most civil way possible.

Topics: Equal Rights Human Resource Unemployment credit credit checks credit reports economy eoe equal opportunity employer
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    Elizabeth Rivas

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    Mar 3 2013: I don't think employers have a right to look into our credit histories. Just like someone stated earlier, good or bad credit may or may not determine whether you're responsible as a person, but it can't determine whether you're moral and will make ethical decisions while on or off the clock and also it doesn't determine if you're even competent and able to do the job well.

    • Andrew Millington

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      Mar 3 2013: Even further, a credit check can only show that you were irresponsible with money in the past. It's really sad that companies are okay passing over potentially good employees because of credit issues.

      Something in favor of companies doing this: Apparently almost a third of people are lying about schooling, employment, and other things on their resumes.

      Something against companies doing this: Between Google Scholar and the two big psych/social science databases I have access to, I couldn't find any academic articles providing any kind of evidence that credit score matters correlates with bad employee behavior of any kind.
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        Elizabeth Rivas

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        Mar 3 2013: Just wondering what you might consider lying on your resume?You mentioned almost a third lie about schooling,employment, and other things, which I don't agree with, but is it a lie if information is simply left out?I know on our resumes we put past work experiences but what if someone wanted to expand on only a few work experiences opposed to all of their past work experiences? Also resumes are a big place for people to lie anyways,or at least in a sense,flaunting skills or abilities that they might not actually be very "excellent" at.
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          Mykle Ykle

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          Mar 3 2013: I think omitting information on a resumé is not lying if you are looking to customize a resumé for a specific employer. Embellishing however is something that should not be done, but it's too subjective.

        • Andrew Millington

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          Mar 4 2013: Well last resume like thing that I made I actually left out all specific details of my past work experience and made up a CV type thing instead because I felt my previous resume material was pretty irrelevant. As for the article I bumped into that comment from, I don't know if "lying" included leaving out irrelevant information. Obviously I put my own interpretation on what they meant since I quoted it here.

          But yeah... I tend to think more along the lines of embellishing or putting down experience/schooling that did not happen at all.
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        Mykle Ykle

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        Mar 3 2013: I'm ok with getting a background check on my previous work experience and education, but not ok with them basing their hiring decision on credit score.

        • Andrew Millington

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          Mar 4 2013: Well hopefully someone will do some research to help us figure out if there even a basis for this kind of thing then.

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