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De Blasio, Council Urged to Ban Credit checks in hiring

Crain's New York Business

While the de Blasio administration and the City Council work through the details of a bill that would prohibit employers from reviewing the credit histories of potential hires, liberal advocates are pushing for passage of the strongest possible version of the legislation.

Demos, a progressive think tank, issued a memo Wednesday urging Mayor Bill de Blasio and the council to pass a bill without exemptions, arguing they would undermine the legislation.

"New York City has a genuine opportunity to lead the nation in a progressive direction by enacting the nation’s strongest law prohibiting credit discrimination," the group writes in the memo, taking care to include one of the mayor's favorite adjectives.

Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at Demos, said the city should pass one of the most restrictive credit-check bans in the country. Similar bills in other cities gave law enforcement and financial firms exemptions that offset the intent of the legislation, she argued.