As a Hiring Filter, Credit Checks Draw Questions
By ANDREW MARTIN
Published: April 9, 2010
Lauryn Beer of Washington says she believes she has missed out on several potential employment opportunities because of her credit history.
Retailers lose more than $30 billion a year because of employee theft, he says. Workplace violence costs employers $55 million a year in lost wages. A third of employees provide bogus information on their résumés.
Screening the backgrounds of employees “is critical to protect the safety of Connecticut residents in their homes and offices, in their cars and in all other places they travel,” Mr. Rosenberg testified to Connecticut legislators in February 2009, explaining why TransUnion markets its credit reports to employers.
Trouble is, researchers say there is no evidence showing that people with weak credit are more likely to be bad employees or to steal from their bosses, a fact that Mr. Rosenberg himself later admitted.
“At this point we don’t have any research to show any statistical correlation between what’s in somebody’s credit report and their job performance or their likelihood to commit fraud,” he said in separate testimony to Oregon legislators in January.
With millions of Americans nursing damaged credit reports after a bruising recession, some lawmakers are seeking to limit the use of credit reports as a factor in hiring.
Legislators in more than a dozen states have introduced bills to curb the use of credit checks during the hiring process, and three states have passed such laws.
At the federal level, Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, is pursuing his own legislation that would prohibit employers nationwide from using credit checks to discriminate in hiring. more...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/business/10credit.html
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