Professional Resume Design

Can poor credit be a barrier to finding a new job? MSNBC.com says yes. My first reaction to this piece was defensiveness for job seekers everywhere – as if finding a job isn’t hard enough already. Now a potential candidate has to open up about their credit history. There are so many things at play here it’s hard to even know where to start.

I try not to be myopic about employment – it’s part of larger forces that shape our society. News organizations do like to sell bad news, that’s the first thing I think whenever I read stories on MSNBC, CNN or other websites. Bad news sells, it just does. So that’s one force shaping the perception of things. Another force is that most people don’t want to hear bad news unless they are experiencing hard times…I imagine that there are large pockets of the US where people are very much in tune with the current economic hardships workers are facing – and other, smaller swaths where people choose to tune out ‘bad’ (or discouraging) news because they can – they have a choice about it.

I’m upset at employers setting up an artificial boundary to work, such as a credit check. With so many ways to go bankrupt, and money (and having lots of things) such an integral part of American policy and identity in the last 50 years, it’s hard to blame people for debt incurred through home ownership, sickness, or even credit card debt. This is part of what drove our economy. After 9/11, President Bush made it clear that people needed to keep shopping and keep spending. People bought, and bought into it.

I don’t know very many reckless people – most are responsible, and got in over their heads either on a housing loan, medical bills or credit card debt. Income to debt ratio in the US is around 123%, so I don’t see how screening people based on credit history is fair, just, or even effective. Nearly everyone is over-leveraged, and while some people have help from family, or can re-finance, many people are stuck with bankruptcy, foreclosure or other difficult options.

This would also seem to have a class component – that people with lower incomes are more likely to have poor credit scores as a result of a smaller ‘cushion’ of income. Things are very tough indeed for low-wage workers, much worse than the upper tiers of income. Low income earners are experiencing unemployment rates of around 30% nationally.

I read articles everyday about how tough it is for job seekers – it’s too bad that things aren’t getting easier.