Over the last decade, an increasing number of cities and states passed laws limiting the use of credit checks in hiring, promotion, and firing. These laws have been motivated by the reality that personal credit history is not relevant to employment and that employment credit checks prevent otherwise

Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its annual assessment of the CARD Act, a landmark 2009 credit card reform bill.

There’s recourse available to people who find themselves in cycles of unpayable debt; it’s called bankruptcy. Unfortunately for student debtors, education loans are exceedingly difficult to discharge in bankruptcy, which makes little sense in an era where college is unattainable for most without

On Monday, President Obama ordered federal agencies to stop asking most prospective employees about their criminal histories at the beginning of the application process. For too long, Americans seeking to re-enter the workforce and make an honest living have had job opportunities taken away because

Last year, Demos started a high school summer internship program. We select a rising senior from a New York City school in a lower income community. The student, paid the Demos minimum wage, spends the summer supporting the legal and administrative teams and meeting with staff to learn about careers

The system is profitable but imperfect, and for decades critics have attacked it for all sorts of offenses. In 1969, Columbia University legal scholar Alan Westin testified to Congress that the companies violated Americans’ right to privacy and that their inaccuracies damaged lives.

Consumer advocacy groups have long complained that there is no link between bad credit and job performance. They argue that such checks lead to discriminatory hiring.

Millennials have an average credit score of 625 (based on the Experian VantageScore 3.0 credit score), compared to 650 for Generation X and 709 for those over 50 years old. They also use an average of 43 percent of their credit limits—compared to 34 percent nationally—and their average debt

In New York, your personal credit history is no longer any of your employer’s business.

While income is distributed unequally in the country, what few people know is how much more unequally wealth, financial assets and inheritances are distributed.