MAGAt Republican Governor of Arkansas Sarah Huckabee Sanders Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty

The United States’ credit scoring system is something that residents of some European countries have a hard time comprehending. Credit cards are king in the U.S., yet in parts of the European Union (EU), debit cards are more popular. And European banks and lenders don’t necessarily regard credit card use as a sign of one’s financial health.

Regardless, the credit scoring companies Equifax, Trans Union and Experian have enormous influence in the U.S., where one’s credit score can mean the difference between qualifying for a mortgage and not qualifying for a mortgage. According to reporting from the Washington Post’s Andrew Van Dam, the South is the U.S. region that tends to have the country’s lowest credit scores. And the reporter lays out some reasons for that in an article published on February 21.

Van Dam notes that according to an economic paper published by the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) in December 2022, low credit scores are a problem […]

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