Life happens. We have children to support. We lose jobs. Marriages fall apart. By the time we near our ‘Golden Years’ the nest-egg we may have envisioned may be a lot smaller than we thought and in many cases, not there at all due to heavy debt loads.

Maybe no economic statistic captures the continuing impact of the nation’s history of inequality better than the racial wealth gap. It has left a yawning gulf that separates whites from blacks and Hispanics. And it persists across income and educational levels in ways that have left whites who are

For companies hiring staff, pitches from online security firms sound appealing enough: Running a credit check before signing up a new employee will “offer insight into an applicant’s reliability and a sense of their personal responsibility,” insists employeescreen.com. Another security firm swears

Americans are ending 2014 with a binge — on credit-card debt. The year that began with a flood of red ink is now seeing credit-card and other debt spiking higher as it comes to an end. Consumers have continued pulling out the plastic this year, with a nearly $16 billion increase in debt in the third

Nearly half of the nation's employers investigate job applicants' credit histories as a condition of employment. As a result, New Yorkers struggling with debt -- medical bills, school loans or car payments -- are often shut out of jobs. This unfair barrier to employment can be dismantled by

(New York, New York) – Today the national public policy organization Demos and The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) released a new report that explores the use of credit cards and the impact of debt on Latino households in America. The housing crash resulted in a tremendous loss of wealth in the

The FDIC estimates there are 10 million people living in the U.S. who do not have a bank account — that’s one out of every 13 households. Nearly 33 percent of people living in Starr County, TX can’t write a check. In one census district in Savannah, GA, over 42 percent of residents are unbanked. The

By offering low-fee checking accounts, Walmart dares to go where most big banks won't. Few major financial institutions are willing to give lower-income Americans checking accounts these days -- without exorbitant fees. But, unlike the big banks, Walmart really needs low-income customers.

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.

It’s the classic Catch-22 of the doomed job search: How do you get a job? You need experience. And how do you get experience? Get a job. But for many, the unemployment cycle gets further twisted when it intersects with the debt cycle. When prospective employers run credit checks, a bad report