Activist, commentator and former Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner periodically calls for the repeal of credit scores, and has tweeted at least three times in the last six months that the system used to decide how likely a person is to pay his or her bills is “a scam,” “designed to keep people in poverty” and one “we can live without.”
Credit scores have been scrutinized because they are often required — sometimes, by law — to buy insurance, apply for housing rentals, maintain employment or get transportation. These are all basic functions of meaningful participation in modern society, Jonathan Cinnamon wrote in his 2017 article, “Social Injustice in Surveillance Capitalism.”
“It’s like your passport to everything that you need to do as an adult,” said Frederick Wherry, director of the Dignity and Debt Network in a CNBC report.
Benefits of having a high credit score include lower interest rates on credit cards and loans, more negotiating power, higher borrowing limits and cellphone contracts and utility hookups without a security deposit. You can survive with bad credit, but it may not be easy and it definitely won’t be cheap, LaToya Irby wrote for The Balance.
Supporters of the U.S. credit scoring system say one of its key benefits is that it’s…
