9 years ago: Plastic Handcuffs IV

A low credit score can mean many things.

It may mean that you are an unreliable and irresponsible person and therefore the unelected-yet-very-powerful credit reporting agencies have determined that you are not to be trusted with loans of large sums of money.

It’s far more likely, though, that it means you simply don’t have large sums of money at your disposal, and therefore the almighty CRAs are simply noting that you would not have the means to repay such loans.

The former is a matter of character. The latter is a matter of circumstance. Credit scores are not designed to distinguish between the two, yet increasingly they are being used as though they were solely a measure of character.

Credit scores aren’t just for lenders anymore. Now employers are using these scores to screen potential employees. This is only slightly less arbitrary and foolish than if they were using phrenology or astrology.

One factor that can drastically lower a person’s credit score is if they are unemployed. This means that the mere fact that you need a job is now considered, by some companies, to be a reason not to give you one. Didn’t poor people face enough Catch-22s already without these idiots having to invent a new one?