This white paper provides an overview of the most significant uses of credit reports and credit scores for purposes other than credit underwriting. These non-credit uses include: Employment, Rental housing, Insurance, and others.
Read More about Mission Creep: a Primer on Use of Credit Reports & Scores for Non-Credit Purposes
The collateral consequences of ending up on the wrong side of America’s criminal legal system are increasingly recognized as wide-ranging and harmful. Incarceration or even simply a criminal record can limit nearly every aspect of a person’s life even after their sentence ends, interfering with the ability to keep or get a job and support…
Forty-five states and the District of Columbia (DC) currently cap interest rates and loan fees for at least some consumer installment loans, depending on the size of the loan. However, the caps vary greatly from state to state, and a few states do not cap interest rates at all.
Across the United States, communities are grappling with rising water and sewer rates, which are increasingly unaffordable for many low-income households. When people cannot afford to pay, they face loss of access to essential water services, spiraling debt and economic hardship, loss of housing, loss of parental custody of children, and grave risks to both…
This report explains the depth and reasons for scam robocall problem, and how the FCC has responded. We recommend several simple strategies that would stop most, if not all, of these fraudulent robocalls.
This report discusses the intersections between the racial health gap and racial wealth gap, “charity care” or hospital financial assistance programs, and the harms of aggressive medical debt collection.
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For the nearly one-third of adults in the U.S. with a record of arrest or conviction, their record is not simply part of their past but a continuing condition that impacts nearly every aspect of their life.
OVID-19 pandemic has had a severe financial impact on customers’ ability to pay for basic necessities such as utility service. Nearly one million Massachusetts residential customers (824,972) owed a total of $793.8 million in unpaid electric and gas bills at the end of June 2021, $219.1 million (38%) more than was owed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The vast majority of those arrears (83%/$660.8 million) were held by customers who were more than 90 days behind on their bills, and thus at imminent risk of termination. By October 1, the two largest utility companies in Massachusetts reported that over 7,000 residential customers had been terminated since the state’s moratorium on residential shutoffs was lifted on July 1. before the moratorium on residential utility shutoffs expired on July 1. As the future remains uncertain, and households continue to financially struggle, millions of customers across the country need assistance immediately to avoid losing access to critical utility service.
State exemption laws, which protect income and property from seizure by creditors, debt buyers, and the debt collectors they hire, are a fundamental safeguard for families. Exemption laws are designed to protect consumers and their families from poverty, and to preserve their ability to be productive members of society and achieve financial rehabilitation. These protections…
A primer for advocates and policy makers INTRODUCTION The use of the criminal justice system to collect fines, fees, restitution, and other types of criminal justice debt has been condemned as punitive, self-defeating, discriminatory, and, in some cases, unconstitutional. Would use of the existing civil justice system be a viable alternative? The criminal justice system’s…
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When a college education is cut short by a school closure or a school engages in fraud, the students and their families suffer long-term financial distress. Higher education fraud, when unaddressed, devastates families and their communities, disproportionately impacting low-income, people of color, and women, who start out economically disadvantaged. In recent years, several large for-profit…
Read More about How States Can Help Students Harmed by Higher Education Fraud
A guide to discharging criminal justice debt in bankruptcy INTRODUCTION Bankruptcy offers debtors “a new opportunity in life and a clear field for future effort, unhampered by the pressure and discouragement of pre-existing debt.” Certain types of debt resulting from fines, fees, and other costs imposed on people accused of an infraction, misdemeanor, or felony…
