Is bad credit an accurate predictor of employee trustworthiness or reliability?  Or is it discriminatory?  We first discussed this in 2011, before the great debates began. 

See link: https://employmentdiscrimination.foxrothschild.com/2011/02/articles/another-category/careful-how-you-use-those-credit-checks-they-could-be-discriminatory/

 

The New York Times today has a great article, "The Long Shadow of Bad Credit," that nicely illustrates the on-going debate about credit checks and trustworthiness, and the proliferation of anti-credit checking laws.  It uses interviews with employees, employers and credit reporting bureau spokespeople, as well as studies on whether there is a statistical correlation between bad credit and job performance or propensity for committing fraud, to highlight the arguments for and against such laws. 

And whether the use of credit checks is a way to discriminate illegally "[i]f you have five people and can’t make up your mind."

 

The NYT link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/business/employers-pull-applicants-credit-reports.html?pagewanted=all