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Your Credit Score Isn't a Reflection of Your Moral Character. But the Department of Homeland Security Seems To Think It Is. (slate.com)
What kind of person racks up debts and doesn't pay them? Your credit score is an attempt to answer this question. A report elaborates: These important three-digit numbers summarize our statistical risk for lenders. The allure of the credit score is its clarity: It cuts through appearances and converts our messy lives into an easily readable metric. The difference between a score of 750 and 600 is obvious. One is an excellent bet for a lender to make; the other is not. On balance, credit scores have made borrowing more convenient, and fairer, for consumers. But the U.S. Department of Homeland Security wants to use credit scores for an entirely different purpose, one they were never built for and are not suited for.
The agency charged with safeguarding the nation would like to make immigrants submit their credit scores when applying for legal resident status. The new rule, contained in a proposal signed by DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, is designed to help immigration officers identify applicants likely to become a "public charge" -- that is, a person primarily dependent on government assistance for food, housing, or medical care. According to the proposal, credit scores and other financial records (including credit reports, the comprehensive individual files from which credit scores are generated) would be reviewed to predict an applicant's chances of "self-sufficiency." The proposal is open for public comment until Dec. 10. Setting aside the proposal's moral abdication when it comes to the needy, we should be troubled by another injustice: its abuse of personal metrics.
The agency charged with safeguarding the nation would like to make immigrants submit their credit scores when applying for legal resident status. The new rule, contained in a proposal signed by DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, is designed to help immigration officers identify applicants likely to become a "public charge" -- that is, a person primarily dependent on government assistance for food, housing, or medical care. According to the proposal, credit scores and other financial records (including credit reports, the comprehensive individual files from which credit scores are generated) would be reviewed to predict an applicant's chances of "self-sufficiency." The proposal is open for public comment until Dec. 10. Setting aside the proposal's moral abdication when it comes to the needy, we should be troubled by another injustice: its abuse of personal metrics.
Nonsense. Credit scores are used to assign a risk to a borrower. The higher a person's credit score, the more likely it is that they will pay back what they borrow. Unlike China's "social credit," credit scoring is is rooted in real actuarial science. We've already seen what happens when credit scores and the like are ignored and money is just lent out to anyone regardless of their ability to ever pay it back (the mid-2000s housing crisis, and today's student loan crisis) just because "it's the right thing to do." It is a bad thing financially for the country (any country, not just the US) to import a bunch of dependents who are statistically highly unlikely to be able to provide any value to society beyond "diversity." Unlike previous generations of immigrants, there are very few opportunities for unskilled laborers in the United States. If you are hellbent on bringing them here, you better have a real plan for paying for them.
Indeed, total flamebait.
The proposal (which may be bad or good, that's for another post) is:
Try to estimate the likelihood that the person will becime financially dependent on the taxpayers, by looking at their finances.
It's nothing about moral character. THIS proposal is about the financial cost to tax payers. How many financially dependent people we want to bring in is a related, though different, discussion.
Financial dependence isn't "moral character". My daughter is 100% dependent on me financially*. She has high moral character. She's four. The headline is crap.
I suppose someone *could* make the argument that having a habit of borrowing money and not paying it back is a moral weakness, but the authors of the proposal make no such statement. They argue that people who are financially a mess are more likely to become a drain on the tax payer.
* My four year old daughter regularly asks for jobs she can do to earn money for extra toys.
I have no credit score ...
Yes you do. You may not know what it is, but if you are an adult in America, you likely have a credit rating.
... because I've never felt like spending more than I have.
That is NOT the only reason to have credit. You should apply for credit and establish a track record of handing it responsibly. Otherwise, someday you are going to want to borrow to buy a house or pay for your kid's college, and the answer is going to be "no".
Get a credit card with a $500 limit. Use it. Set auto-pay from your bank account so you never miss a payment and never pay a cent in interest. After a year, ask the issuer to raise the debt limit.
If you want to be successful in life, you need to learn basic money management. If you have no credit line, you are doing it wrong.
Hmm, I read the AC's comment as satire, along the lines of "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift. In other words, I think he may have been agreeing with you. No matter, since it's the internet, proceed immediately to the verbal evisceration phase.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.