Media

Remember having ‘the talk’ with your parents? That clumsy conversation forced upon you as a pre-teen when you desperately tried to avoid eye contact while muttering “I already know this, Dad” and wavered back and forth between feeling embarrassed and grateful?

Get ready for a role reversal.

People who end up with damaged credit — often through no fault of their own — can be shut out of jobs by employers who hold their credit histories against them.

Credit checks aren’t just for loan officers anymore. Now, your prospective employer is checking your credit history too.

The practice is increasingly common as employers look for more ways to determine whether or not they’re about to hire the right employee.

But Massachusettes Sentaor Elizabeth Warren says it’s a practice that must end because credit history is biased and does not give an accurate picture of a person’s ability to do their job properly.

One familiar excuse for inequality is to argue that the problem is not that the people at the top are making too much money. Rather, the "problem is declining or stagnant wages for those Americans who are not thriving in the 21st-century economy," as Kevin Williamson argues today over at National Review online.

A judge's ruling that the city of Detroit can move forward with bankruptcy and strip the city's public workers of their modest pension benefits will have a devastating impact on Detroit's middle class — many of whom are African-American — and the city's ability to rebuild a strong and sustainable economy.

NEW YORK — Demos applauds the work of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) who today introduced The Equal Employment for All Act, legislation that would prohibit the widespread use of personal credit history in employment. The use of employment credit checks is an unjust practice that poses a serious barrier to economic security for many Americans and leads to discriminatory hiring practices against people of color and the long-term unemployed.

WASHINGTON—Today, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced The Equal Employment for All Act. This legislation would prohibit the widespread use of personal credit history in employment, an unjust practice that poses a serious barrier to economic security for many Americans and leads to discriminatory hiring practices against people of color and the long-term unemployed.

A new survey finds that African-Americans are much more likely than whites to be called by debt collectors, despite both groups reporting relatively equal levels of debt and repayment rates.

Just take a look at this chart:

Yesterday I criticized Arthur Brooks for arguing in the New York Times that more free enterprise is a key to greater happiness. Beyond the fact that the happiest people in the world tend to live in European nations that have tempered the market with strong government, here's another key point to consider: Often those companies which innovate to practice a purer form of free enterprise are absolutely miserable places to work.