Character, not credit

Let’s say you own a business and you’re looking to hire somebody to keep your books.

Do you care more about applicants’ credit scores, or their arrest record?

We’d wager that most employers would rather know whether their prospective accountant has been convicted of embezzlement than find out that the person sent a mortgage payment late.

Which partially explains why we applaud the Oregon Legislature for passing Senate Bill 1045 during the recent month-long special session.

The bill, which takes effect July 1, prevents most employers from perusing the credit history of job applicants.

The biggest benefit of the bill is that it should get Oregonians off the unemployment rolls sooner.

There are plenty of people in the state now whose credit score has plunged since they joined the list of more than 125,000 Oregonians who have lost their job during the recession.

The notion that a credit report accurately gauges a person’s propensity for committing white-collar crimes seems specious to us.

Employers care far more about applicants’ character than about their credit.

And employers can still paint a pretty clear picture of character by conducting a thorough background investigation, including checking criminal history and talking with references.

Senate Bill 1045 deals only with credit checks.

Also, the legislation exempts banks, law enforcement agencies and other employers that can demonstrate convincingly that a person who has a lousy credit history would be a bad risk for a particular job.

Obviously a bank teller handles money more often than does, say, a plumber.

We understand the concern, expressed by opponents of SB 1045, that banning most employers from doing credit checks will make those businesses more vulnerable to getting saddled with dishonest workers.

But considering employers can continue to use criminal checks and other more effective means for weeding out such workers, we believe SB 1045 will help considerably more unemployed Oregonians than it will hurt businesses.