Dive Brief:

• United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) Wednesday (8/5) introduced the Equal Employment for All Act with several other U.S. senators including Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, according to Patch.com.
• The legislation would prohibit employers from requiring potential employees to disclose their credit history as part of the job application process.
• A study from the Federal Trade Commission earlier this year suggested that errors in credit reports are common and, in many cases, have been difficult to correct, Patch reported.

Dive Insight:

“A bad credit rating is far more often the result of unexpected medical costs, unemployment, economic downturns, or other bad breaks than it is a reflection on an individual’s character or abilities,” Warren said.

She added that families have not fully recovered from the 2008 financial crisis, and too many Americans are still searching for jobs. "This is about basic fairness -- let people compete on the merits, not on whether they already have enough money to pay all their bills," she said.

While far from becoming law, there are more than 40 organizations that endorse it, including 9to5, the National Employment Law Project and the National Women’s Law Center. For HR, if the law is passed, it would apply more to service industry sectors than other areas.