This shouldn't matter for a married household with merged finances - they count whatever income the respondent can rely on to pay their bills.

Except that statistically, men more often have control of finances. This debacle is regressive, but very likely based on market research.

Is it legal to model that type of dynamic into credit decisions? I've never heard of being able to use that type of social dynamic into a very regulated financial product.

Even if it is not legal to do so explicitly, there are probably a number of things which correlate with it that it is legal to use, which end up with the same effect. And indirect (disparate impact) discrimination without intent to discriminate on a prohibited basis isn't generally illegal in the US except in employment law.

Statistically false.

Women account for 85% for all purchases, they control 60% of all wealth in the US, 40$% of them out-earn their spouse.

https://girlpowermarketing.com/statistics-purchasing-power-w...

40%. That's 60% who don't, which is why the banks might assume that the men are primarily the breadwinners. Also, banks are slow to change, and I'm positive those numbers have shifted fairly recently.

Let's not let facts get in the way of a good internet outrage session!

Came here to post the same. If my wife had an income and I didn’t then I would expect her to be offered a higher limit even if everything goes into household income. Does the US credit system not differentiate between household and individual income?

They have covered this numerous times. In certain states, there seems to be something called community property law (which I found out about in this debacle) that states that a married couple who file jointly, their incomes are considered the same.

So at best, this is shitty software design that doesn't take your state's community property laws into account, and at worst, it is a pretty clear cut case of sexism of the "algorithm."

Update: corrected name of law based on child posts.

Even with community property, surely the occupation is a valid signal? If I was a teacher and my wife was a CEO again I think it’s reasonable she is offered more credit even in a community property state. She would simply have more earning power than me.

I can picture all kinds of bugs coming from the fact A+B=A under this setup.. might be one of the reasons the software can’t handle it, if it’s something specific to a couple states’ tax systems. Income being represented twice (instead of split equally) seems quite unexpected. Would make more sense to consider both a single “individual”? Recipe for disaster either way.

Community Property laws and joint tax filing do not suddenly make each partner’s creditworthiness or credit risk identical.

The fact that nobody can actually explain in a mathematical and deterministic way to a card holder exactly what goes into their creditworthiness is very problematic, given that creditworthiness is a foundational aspect of our economy.

And in many cases, these algorithms are deemed proprietary. So there's no accountability AT ALL. How we were somehow ok with trusting 3 private for-profit companies with this much power always baffles me.

It's often called "community property": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_property

Household income.

No: https://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/A...

Can you show a screen shot of the page that the “what does annual income include?” text links to? Otherwise we are just debating the semantics of the word annual in this context.