Credit checks on applicants have long been a device used by financial firms, the government and employers looking to fill positions dealing with the handling of money, but with credit reports available cheap and easily, more and more employers are using them to cast judgment on the judgment of others. So even if you've gone months without a job, you'd better be willing to give handjobs in the parking lot at Denny's if you have to in order to not fall behind on your cell phone bill, because otherwise you might never get a damn job!

Reports the New York Times:

Once reserved for government jobs or payroll positions that could involve significant sums of money, credit checks are now fast, cheap and used for all manner of work. Employers, often winnowing a big pool of job applicants in days of nearly 10 percent unemployment, view the credit check as a valuable tool for assessing someone's judgment.

"How do you get out from under it?" asked Matthew W. Finkin, a law professor at the University of Illinois, who fears that the unemployed and debt-ridden could form a luckless class. "You can't re-establish your credit if you can't get a job, and you can't get a job if you've got bad credit."

Even worse, employers are using credit reports to fill positions that have absolutely nothing to do with money.

"There's no relationship between being a personal trainer making $12 an hour" and having a good credit history, said Janet L. Newcomb, a career counselor in Huntington Beach, Calif. "People are being turned down for jobs on the basis of things that really have nothing to do with qualifications."

So yeah, it sucks to be unemployed, but at least there's free wi-fi in coffee shops! Oh, right.

Pic via

Our expectation for Newsweek has long been that it will just continue its slow slide into total irrelevance and eventual bankruptcy, clinging to a weekly news model that the internet long ago made defunct. But maybe not! Because the top editors of Newsweek are apparently acknowledging that their model is defunct, and trying something else. Namely, they're targeting a smaller, richer audience, and ending their focus on reporting on the "News" of the "Week" in favor of thinkier opinionated pieces. In other words, they're mashing up The Economist and The Atlantic with a little dash of that trademark Newsweek bullshit for people who only read for five minutes per week:

Starting in May, articles will be reorganized under four broad, new sections - one each for short takes, columnists and commentary, long reporting pieces like the cover articles, and culture - each with less compulsion to touch on the week's biggest events. A new graphic feature on the last page, "The Bluffer's Guide," will tell readers how to sound as if they are knowledgeable on a current topic, whether they are or not.

This is really the only viable path to survival for Newsweek, so we have nothing bad to say about it. Unless it has a deleterious effect on the Historical Jesus reporting, in which case, HELL. [NYT]