Your Credit Rating, Your Character

March 7, 2008

Last Sunday the New York Times ran an article on the tough job market out there now. The story had the following sketch of a woman looking for work:

But the bills for Ms. Thomas are still coming due. She lost her car in November 2005 after she fell behind on the payments. Unable to drive to work, she lost her job. Since then, she has been unable to find a job.

Several times, she has landed interviews that seemed likely to bring offers, but the jobs required a credit check — a test she cannot pass.

“My credit is just so in shambles,” she told a classroom full of people gathered for a credit counseling session at the Private Industry Council. “More and more jobs are checking your credit. They’re saying that credit is a reflection of your character.”

The entire article is a reminder of the way the lower classes in our country have been shafted by the economic policies of the Bush administration. I was also surprised to note the way credit checks are being used in the hiring process.. along with the notion that credit is a reflection of character. I would never have thought of that. A credit rating could be due to thousands of contingencies and I would never connect that number to character and job performance. In fact, I would have guessed that it was illegal to refuse to hire based on a credit report. This may well be an indicator of where we are heading. That nice number we get from a credit report may someday soon come to be basically an index of our character. Many people believe that someone up above is keeping an account of their deeds.. but now that account may be an omniscient computerized credit report. This invasion of financial statistics into our evaluations of personal worth should be resisted wherever possible.