Credit Report Abuses Hurting Middle Class Workers
By Michael Boyajian
Credit reporting organizations are trying to expand their businesses by scaring consumers and by expanding into other facets of American business life. One of particular harm is the use of credit reports in making a hiring decision. This has a disparate impact on the middle class which is experiencing extreme hardship during the current economic crisis.
It should be illegal for employers to use a credit report when making a hiring decision. Their use should be strictly limited to lenders who are considering the issuance of credit. You have to be a pretty big fool to believe that ordinary people have sterling credit reports today. A very large portion of the population has missed credit payments or paid them late or even gone bankrupt through no fault of their own having been out of work for prolonged periods of time wrecking havoc on their credit reports.
So using a credit report to screen potential employees is like shooting fish in a barrel holding people who experience hardship responsible for things that were caused not by themselves but because of the ineptitude of elected officials who prayed at the false alter of unregulated markets and because of greedy bankers.
Untold millions of Americans are being denied jobs because of their credit reports and they are now becoming a permanent unemployed underclass just so credit reporters can expand their businesses. This is morally wrong and Federal and State authorities should crack down hard on these predators and outlaw the use of credit reports in hiring decisions.
It is time to provide protection for the middle class which has served as a punching bag and profit center for abusive credit report companies for far too long. Sooner or later in this economic climate we will all have adverse credit reports and no American will be working. America will find itself weak and imprisoned by these credit interests and we will witness the death of our once great middle class, a class that had historically made America stronger than other nations around the world.
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