African Americans have been pummeled by the recent financial crisis, including facing the most adverse consequences of credit card debt and higher interest rates, according to a recently released study by the NAACP and Demos, a U.S.-based research and policy center.
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?
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.
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.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced legislation on Tuesday that would prohibit employers from requiring job applicants to disclose their credit history.
In a conference call with reporters, Warren argued that a person's poor credit history is often the result of medical bills, job loss or divorce and does not reflect his ability to perform a job.
Job-hunters are increasingly being asked to agree to allow potential employers to view their personal credit information, a development that Sen. Elizabeth Warren says is unfairly keeping people out of the job market who've had financial setbacks or have reports that contain inaccurate information.
Hank Ronan knew he would get the job. He had sailed through three rounds of interviews and hit it off with the doctors at the diagnostic center in Annandale, Va., where he had applied to be a driver for $11 an hour.
Shuttling patients to appointments was a world away from his 20 years as a software engineer, but it was the best that Ronan could find after being laid off in 2011. He was eager to get back to work and granted the doctor’s office permission to run a credit check. Ronan never heard back, he said Tuesday in an interview. [...]
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 pe
President Obama has proclaimed that thanks to the Volcker Rule "never again will the American taxpayer be held hostage by a bank that is `Too Big to Fail', " the reality is a bit more complicated.
Though the rule issued today by financial regulators seeks to ban proprietary trading -- essentially gambling with federally insured deposits -- some experts argue that banks will find ways to get around the restrictions to continue engaging in risky behavior. [...]
The much-anticipated final regulations implementing the Volcker Rule will be released today and, almost miraculously, it seems to be significantly stronger than the proposed text publicized more than a year ago. We will all have to await the actual wording since this is an area in which the devil is truly in the details.
But the all-important limitation on insured banks betting on the trading markets with depositors’ money is rumored to do a few key things:
Don't use that post-surgery fog as an excuse to ignore medical bills, even if you're still contesting them with your doctor or health insurer. Otherwise, your credit score will need to heal, too.
Medical debt is the most common type of collection account, representing nearly half of all reported collections. Almost one in six credit reports contain a medical debt collection, according to the Federal Reserve. And about two in five Americans reported a lower credit rating last year due to unpaid medical bills. [...]
Credit cards can be a useful stop-gap until payday, but when paychecks aren’t enough to cover the basics and balances roll over, credit cards become an expensive way to make ends meet. Past research from Demos shows that 40 percent of indebted low- and middle-income households have used their credit cards as a plastic safety net when incomes, assets, and shrinking public programs did not afford enough to meet basic needs.
The bill for decades of Detroit's financial decline has now come due.
A federal judge's ruling approving the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history Tuesday sets the stage for an epic legal battle over who will be asked to help pick up the tab, including bond investors, retired city workers, city vendors, state taxpayers, or Wall Street bankers.
In fact, the Volcker rule is already federal law, passed as part of the massive financial sector overall bill known as the Dodd-Frank Act, signed in 2010. But since that time, five separate regulatory agencies, including those that focus on the markets and others on the banks, have been working to come up with a rule that will satisfy all parties.
Here we go again: Home equity lines of credit are on the rise -- with a 16 percent increase forecast this year -- as more homeowners borrow against the value of their homes. The reflexive question might be: Didn't Americans learn anything from the housing bust?
One of the most simplistic fictions is that corporate elites are spearheading a "class war" all on their own, driving down wages to squeeze out higher profits in the name of greed.
Of course, that's not actually the way modern shareholder capitalism works. Instead, most CEOs and executives -- and the boards who hire and fire them -- wake up every day worrying about how they are going to please you and me. (Assuming you, like me, have money invested in stocks through your 401k or whatnot.)
Older Americans are disproportionately likely to be in debt. A 2012 Demos survey found that citizens 65 and older typically carried $9,300 on their credit cards, the most of any age group. Debt burdens are increasing, too.