The Work Number: credit score but for your employment history – by Equifax | Hacker News Reader

The Work Number: credit score but for your employment history – by Equifax

employees.theworknumber.com

42 pointsfirefoxd65 comments

A vent: why is it any of your business why I had X months without work? Maybe I had enough money not to work for a bit and felt like doing something different. Why am I obligated to continuous labour even when I don't need it. Why am I subject to your judgement for not renting out my life at every possible moment?

Corporations want obedient wage slaves, so if they find out that you may have some "Fuck you" money that you can use to stop working for them at your whim, they will avoid you.

I understand what you're saying, but corporation is made of people. How is this communicated to my hiring manager and why do they agree to play this stupid game?

Because hiring managers and HR have different incentives and it's therefore in their interest to play the game.

See: every manager and CEO that gets a bonus from cutting down head count or keeping the hiring budget as low as possible.

In complex systems, no one sits down and does this. It's the revealed preferences and aggregate outcome when budgeting decisions, or hiring decisions are made. It's the equivalent of stereotypes in organization behavior.

Similarly, having a mortgage and dependants is seen as a "reliability plus point" let's say. Skin in the game.

You may have developed the capacity for independent thought in that period.

The US is rapidly catching up with China in the field of authoritarianism.

I'd call it dystopianism, this page reads like an episode of Black Mirror

china doesnt have anything like this

China has something I think is called "Social Credit Score". This seems to be another step towards that direction.

Their social credit score is the same thing as the US credit rating individuals are scored with.

the social credit score is a score that businesses and business owners have/will have that unites different systems for rating how trustworthy their businesses are to work with

They don't have private companies like Equifax collecting those because it is built into the government.

At the minimum, new employee background check involved providing bank statement + social security contribution + income tax history.

the us government has both. they have a record of your pay and employment history as well. i bet most governments do

I see no way this could go wrong at all.

When you apply for a software job in the US and go through a background check, most of your former employments are verified through The Work Number. As an employee, I'm not aware of a way to opt out of this data collection, and I assume if there is a way, it will surely make the future background check harder.

Now that they allow to look at your personal report, I went ahead, registered and requested a copy. This is just wow.

First of all, I noticed that American Express casually requests my report a few times per year. Well, I guess, if I lose my job, they will know soon! Besides Amex, the only other requests were the background checks when I actually applied for jobs, so everything else is fine.

But you know what else is there? All my fucking paychecks for all companies I used to work for here in the US. Nowhere in my employment agreements I did explicitly agree to my paycheck information to be transferred to Equifax, and yet, here we go.

Looking forward for the moment when all this data is leaked, because, you know, Equifax has some history [1].

[1]: https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/refunds/equifax-data-breach-...

Funnily enough, if you go to the FAQ, under the heading "Can I opt out of having my information on The Work Number?" it straight up starts with "No.", full stop and all.

To be honest, at least they are not lying to you. Most big tech companies do the same and lie about it.

Interesting, it looks like you can only get your own data, if you have an American postal address. So if you moved abroad (or never lived there), you can not get your data, even if they have it.

Reason number xxx that I never plan to return permanently. The longer I'm away the more bonkers things seem there.

Oh, the form also expect you to have a US social security number and US mobile number.

Like a slavery index?

What if you spent 10 years building a business abroad?

I remember early in my career being send by my employer on 'contract' assignments to other companies for 3 or 6 months. When I left that company and went interviewing, everyone was extremely concerned that I had been an independent contractor, some even saying they never employed such people. As though, once you've broken the chains, you're no longer employable.

Should not be legal.

Being an American is so undignified—humiliating, even.

   I lived in what's known as a food desert. It was a place which required a car to get food. We drove on roads which crumbled and destroyed our car. The insurance (which we paid a pretty premium for) covered the fix. Lucky us! We found a garage, which took some time, but they scammed us. While we waited for the insurance to believe us, and we had no car, we tried to walk to get food. Technically, it was a 10 minute walk there, but the trucks (which were very large) made the 8-lane road impassible. We only realized this after trying. Our neighbors doorbell informed the police of this, and we were briefly detained for questions. It wasn't lost on me that the police's main suspicion was that we were homeless. Though not technically a crime, it is very incriminating. After our release, we asked an app to bring us food. It was a weekend, so there was an additional convenience fee. We also left a tip which "went directly to" pay for the human. We didn't hear them or see them, but the app told us the food had arrived and showed a picture of bags on a porch which wasn't ours. It was our neighbor's, whose doorbell had—once again—dispatched police for the intrusion. On Monday, we had no car to drive to the industrial park for work. The bus, which incidentally stopped on the other side of the 8-lane road, arrived once every 50 minutes, but must have had issues since it simply never arrived—though the app had no explanation for this. Nevermind, we called in "sick," which was laughable because being "sick" and taking a personal day were one in the same, but at least being "sick" avoided the shame of being desperate. We did eventually get our car back, not entirely the same, but we could at least move beyond the house again. The insurance app insists our case is settled, but we had to pay out of pocket (a credit card) and we needed reimbursed. We received a letter from the police not long after. A 300 USD fine for disorderly conduct in crossing the road. The date and time were wrong, but the social security number wasn't. We will take a sick day and go to court at 8:20AM next Thursday to appeal.

Such places definitely exist, but it's a choice to live in a food desert vs live in a city with public transportation and walkability. There definitely exist cities in the US where you can live without a car. It's mostly a question of choosing how many square feet of personal space you want to have; it's not really technically possible to have a big house with a backyard, with all neighbors having the same, and being served by a good public transport at the same time.

   ...but it's a choice...

That's the indignity: really believing you must have chosen this—really believing everyone is free to improve upon their circumstances as freely as anyone else.

You wanted cheaper prices for food, so of course Walmart would push out the local shops. You wanted to drive more, so of course the zoning laws were updated to expand the road. You wanted more convenience, so of course an automated bot handles your insurance claim. You wanted to feel safer, so of course your doorbell will dispatch police. You wanted better jobs, so of course your work and salary history is sold to employers.

Individual indignity caused by a privileged pride; you chose this.

Without being too dramatic, this reminds me of the U.S. Department of Transportation's page on A Consumer Guide to Air Travel:

   The elimination of government regulation of airline fares and routes has resulted in lower fares and a wide variety of price/service options. In this new commercial environment, consumers have had to take a more active role in choosing their air service... In other words, airline delays aren't unusual, and defensive planning is a good idea when time is your most important consideration.

> There definitely exist cities in the US where you can live without a car.

Those cities have high COL and very competitive job markets because everyone wants to live there, and good luck moving if you're living paycheck-to-paycheck

I guess you don't need to be an authoritarian country. Just capitalist with no regulation...

State consolidates power or a few megacorps. Unfortunately the middle ground (approximate balance of power) is always tenuous

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