Vermont Becomes the Eighth State to Restrict the Use of Credit Reports for Employment Purposes

On May 17, 2012, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin signed Vermont Act No. 154 (S. 95), which prohibits employers, subject to certain exceptions, from using or inquiring into an applicant or employee's credit report or "credit history" for employment purposes. Relying on a variety of statistics regarding the purported reason that families "go into debt" and the alleged increased use of credit reports for employment purposes, the legislature stated that the new law was necessary because "information contained in a credit report has no correlation to job performance" and "credit reports do not provide meaningful insight into a candidate's character, responsibility, or prospective job performance." To learn about the new law and its potential implications for employers, please continue reading Littler's ASAP, Vermont Becomes the Eighth State to Restrict the Use of Credit Reports for Employment Purposes, by Rod Fliegel and Jennifer Mora.