I don't mind saying, the recession left me with a terrible credit rating. I won't go into the gory details, but it's bad.
However, I'm certainly not alone. There hasn't been enough attention paid to the fact that otherwise responsible Americans were totally screwed by the recession and credit histories have tanked in the process. Consequently, scores of people won't qualify for credit when they need it, and, on top of all of the awfulness in the job market, employers are looking at the credit reports of prospective employees.
"A simple reason to oppose the use of credit history for job applications is the sheer, profound absurdity of the practice," said Chi Chi Wu, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. "Using credit history creates a grotesque conundrum. Simply put, a worker who loses her job is likely to fall behind on paying her bills due to lack of income. With the increasing use of credit reports, this worker now finds herself shut out of the job market because she's behind on her bills. This phenomenon has created concerns that the unemployed and debt-ridden could form a luckless class."
Yeah, it's not enough of an uphill battle to get a job these days, the recession has further cornered honest, hard working Americans in an all new way. Plus, the credit reporting agencies are notoriously shoddy and they only way to watchdog them is to sign up with one of those awful and unscrupulous "free credit" services.
I'd love to see more attention paid to this issue but I won't hold my breath.