Recent events may have brought the debate over homemakers’ contributions back into the spotlight, but last month marked the one-year anniversary of a major - if unnoticed - salvo in the war on stay-at-home parents. Last year, the Federal Reserve declared that credit card applicants must use their individual income on the application, not their household’s. This seemingly innocuous pronouncement has resounding implications: homemakers cannot get a credit card without the breadwinners’ permission.

Statement implies that homemakers do not contribute to income

The Fed put out its statement to clarify a provision of the Credit CARD Act of 2009, which sought to protect college students from getting too-high credit limits and digging themselves into debt. When the CARD Act was passed, students could apply for a line of credit and list their parents’ incomes as their own, thereby getting inappropriately high limits. The law intended to prevent students from borrowing against an income they did not earn.

As a remedy, the legislation required those under 21 to either list their own income - which, for most students, is too small to get a credit card - or enlist a co-signer, who is legally responsible for the debt.

All of this is innocuous enough. But […]