The question of student loans is taking on an increasing urgency everywhere but Washington. Rates on federally subsidized loans doubled to almost 7% on July 1, thanks to Congressional bickering and dithering. The latest attempt to roll back the rates failed to get out of the Senate earlier this week

Afraid your bad credit may be holding you back from a great job? That soon may not be a concern for job-hunting New Yorkers, as the Credit Privacy in Employment Act passed the New York Assembly on June 20. The act will largely ban employers from using credit reports to influence employment decisions

A weekly summary of the top credit card stories that appeared in major publications across the country. Can a Bad Credit Report Hurt Your Job Search?

Can some types of debt cause the blues? Why are people approaching retirement age carrying credit card debt? This column shares results from recent research about credit card debt among older Americans. [...]

For some job seekers, repeated rejection by potential employers may be traceable to an unlikely source: their credit report. Regulators are cracking down on some of the methods companies are using to screen candidates (two major companies this week were accused of using background checks to

Credit reports weren’t designed to be job-screening tools. But about half of employers now use them when making hiring decisions, according to a 2012 study by the Society for Human Resource Management. The practice cuts across all sectors of the economy, from high-level management to office

Last month Nevada joined a growing number of states and cities that are forbidding companies from using credit checks to make employment decisions. But the practice is still legal under federal law. [...]

With a contracting retirement income system, rapidly rising health-care costs, and the prospect of long-term care expenses, one would have thought that people approaching retirement would be paying off their credit card debt and closing out their mortgages. But surveys suggest that people are

It used to be that many Americans entered retirement having paid off their mortgages and most of their other debts. This should have been senior citizens' Golden Years. Nowadays, more and more people over the age of 65 are struggling with mounting debt levels, fueled primarily by mortgages and

A recent AARP Public Policy Institute report found that average credit card balances for households over age 75 jumped 31 percent during the recession. A separate AARP report found that boomers - households over age 50 - now have higher overall credit card debt than younger people - a reversal of