In this sour economy, more people are struggling to meet basic expenses. They fall behind on bill payments, go into debt and see their credit history decline from good to lousy — often due to events beyond their control, such as getting laid off.

These are people that House Bill 31 seeks to protect: honest folks with poor credit, who are looking for a decent job to help them back to fiscal solvency.

The bill has good intentions, but as currently written, it goes too far. It bans as discriminatory an employer's use of a person's credit history or credit report in hiring or firing decisions, except for a job that "directly relates to a bona fide occupational qualification" under state law.

This seems too restrictive; it's likely few jobs would qualify for such an exception. And there are indirect, but perfectly valid reasons for an employer to check such a history — a position in which an employee has access to the assets of the employer or customers, for instance. Hiring someone for such a job who is heavily in debt, with a record of poor financial management, could raise red flags that a prudent employer would be irresponsible to ignore.

Of course, the employer must abide by privacy safeguards of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which requires an employer to get a person's permission before obtaining his credit report.

It's important to keep in mind that a credit history is only one measure of an employee's value, and an often unreliable one at that. Credit reports can be inaccurate or incomplete. A person's credit status may have no bearing on his or her ability to do a good job. More important, routine screening of credit reports could disproportionately affect poorer, minority populations — a key factor in establishing discriminatory practices.

HB 31 needs to be revised to add reasonable exceptions. It should also provide clearer guidance on how credit reports may — and may not — be used, with the goal of making the process fairer for those caught in today's economic vise.