Bartik and Nelson have written Credit Reports as Résumés: The Incidence of Pre-Employment Credit Screening. Here is the abstract: We study recent bans on employers' use of credit reports to screen job applicants – a practice that has been popular among employers, but controversial for its perceived disparate impact on racial minorities. Exploiting geographic, temporal, and […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
The gap between rich and poor, life expectancy, and social security benefits are discussed in this article by Josh Zumbrun, which in turn discusses recent studies by a Stanford University economist and the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Here is an excerpt of Zumbrun's article: A growing body of research in recent years points to the striking fact […]
In this article, Zoe Tillman describes an oral argument today in the D.C. Circuit involving a challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureaus's structure. Specifically, the challengers say that Congress gave the CFPB's director too much power and independence. Tillman says that the D.C. Circuit appears to agree with the challengers: A federal appeals panel […]
Keyless car ignitions — where the driver just pushes a button to start the car — is very convenient. But can it be dangerous. This article says that "at least 60 U.S. drivers … have parked cars with keyless ignitions in their garages, only to forget to push a button and turn the vehicles off." That can […]
This Reuters story explains that Seven New England Patriots fans sued the National Football League on Tuesday, asking a judge to reverse a decision by the league to strip the team of a first-round pick in this month's draft over allegations of underinflated footballs. In a lawsuit filed in Boston federal court, the fans contend that NFL […]
Credit-card (and other) companies would love it if consumers received their monthly statements electronically only. It's cheaper. But, according to a a new report from the National Consumer Law Center — entitled Paper Statements: An Important Consumer Protection— policy makers (and consumers) should resist the pressure to move to an electronic-only world. Here's an excerpt from the […]
Plastic utensils are very cheap to make, and so lots and lots of them are produced day after day, year after year. But plastic utensils take up room in landfills and degrade slowly. So, what about edible utensils? They are delicious (we're told) and have a long shelf life. And, even if you don't want […]
We told you a little while back about a suit by a former law student alleging that her school (Thomas Jefferson School of Law) had taken her money (and caused her student loans to run up) while unlawfully exaggerating her prospects for post-graduation legal employment. As reporter Karen Sloan explains, a San Diego jury yesterday found in favor […]
Law professor Edward McCaffery has written Taxing Wealth Seriously, which argues that U.S. wealth inequality can be and should be reduced via tax policy. Here's the abstract: The social and political problems of wealth inequality in America are severe and getting worse. A surprise is that the U.S. tax system, as is, is a significant cause […]