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CNBC
04-08-2025
- Business
- CNBC
54% of Gen Z feel anxious when checking their credit score
Establishing and maintaining a good credit score is an essential part of unlocking many financial opportunities in life, impacting everything from mortgage and loan approvals to credit card applications and interest rates when borrowing money. Yet, 62% of Gen Z is so anxious about their credit score that they don't look to see what it is, and roughly 1 in 5 have checked their credit score at all, according to a report from USAA Bank titled . The new report paints a picture of a generation that realizes the importance of a good credit score, but does not know what it takes to achieve that goal. In fact, 45% of Gen Z does not understand what makes a good credit score. To help address this challenge, USAA Bank has named August 5 "Perfect Credit Score Day" with the goal of helping Gen Z strive toward better credit health. "We created this day to serve as a compelling reminder of the importance of credit and to empower Gen Z to improve their financial wellness," says Michael Moran, President of USAA Bank. "Financial stress is not stopping Gen Z from having healthy credit aspirations. With the right tools and advice, Gen Z can feel encouraged, not anxious or discouraged, from engaging with their credit score." What's holding Gen Z back when it comes to the issue of credit scores? One of the primary hurdles is anxiety, according to the USAA report. About 54 percent of Gen Z say they experience anxiety over the mere idea of checking their score. As for actually achieving a good credit score, Gen Z sees many barriers in today's economy, particularly inflation and debt. Respondents in the USAA study say the most significant hurdle to achieving an exceptional credit score is rising living costs (27 percent). That's followed by spending too much (20 percent), credit card debt (17 percent) and student loans (17 percent). Despite all of the anxiety and financial pressures, Gen Z remains optimistic about achieving a strong credit score – 76 percent feel they can reach an exceptional credit score (800 - 850), and 67 percent want to learn more about improving their credit score, according to USAA's study. Here are some of the ways to overcome the anxiety and maintain a good credit score. Understanding the factors used by credit bureaus to calculate your credit score is key to achieving and maintaining a solid score. Your FICO credit score, which is the three-digit score lenders use to determine creditworthiness, is calculated based on several factors, each with a different weight or importance in your overall score. The most important factor to your FICO score is debt payment history, which makes up 35 percent of your total score. That's followed by total amount of debt, which accounts for 30 percent of your score. Understanding and staying on top of these two factors alone can have a significant impact on the health of your credit score. It's important to avoid taking on more debt than you can reasonably handle and repay. It's also a good idea to avoid opening multiple accounts, as this can make it harder to keep on top of debt and all of the monthly payments. "Young adults often get bombarded with credit offers. Be very selective. Applying for and opening new credit accounts can hurt your credit score,"says Richard Barrington, financial analyst for Credit Sesame. And if possible, do not borrow money to make ends meet, says Barrington. Payment history makes up the most significant portion of your credit score. If money is tight, it's important to always at least pay the minimum due on your credit cards and loans to avoid impacting your credit score. Making your monthly debt payments should be a top priority. Apps like GoodBudget and YNAB can help you track and manage monthly expenses and spending. Some also allow setting reminders for bill payment due dates. Using these types of tools can help reduce anxiety around money and help you take control of your finances. It's important to avoid shying away from checking your credit score. Remaining informed about where your score stands and what the report says is important to your financial future, and equally importantly, can help you spot fraudulent activity. "Checking your score doesn't mean you've failed—it means you're ready to take control," says Brown. "Use free tools from your bank or Once you know where you stand, you can begin building a game plan." Money matters — so make the most of it. Get expert tips, strategies, news and everything else you need to maximize your money, right to your inbox. Sign up here. At CNBC Select, our mission is to provide our readers with high-quality service journalism and comprehensive consumer advice so they can make informed decisions with their money. Every product review is based on rigorous reporting by our team of expert writers and editors with extensive knowledge and expertise. While CNBC Select earns a commission from affiliate partners on many offers and links, we create all our content without input from our commercial team or any outside third parties, and we pride ourselves on our journalistic standards and ethics.
Boston Globe
23-06-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Mass. Democrats reach rules deal they say will make lawmaking more transparent
Under the agreement, legislative staffers will now produce summaries on all legislation moving through committees, according to lawmakers. The Legislature will also now post online how lawmakers vote in committees, which will also be tasked with making most written testimony they receive public, albeit with limitations for 'sensitive personal information,' according to a summary of the package released by legislative leaders. For years, advocates have argued that those steps are important, if basic, efforts in opening the legislative process. Advertisement Lawmakers also remixed their decades-old calendar by allowing themselves to take up certain types of legislation, such as spending bills and agreements on major bills, throughout their two-year session, including after their traditional deadline to wrap up formal business every other July. Bills could also move more quickly under the agreement, with lawmakers agreeing to require that committees report bills — or whether they recommend them or not — by the first Wednesday in December, months earlier than usual. A separate House rule could move legislation even quicker by mandating that bills be reported no later than 60 days after they're heard by a committee. Advertisement Lawmakers also agreed to give the public a longer heads up on hearings generally, extending the required notice time from 72 hours to 10 days, according to a summary. 'At a time when the strength of our institutions matters more than ever, these changes underscore our commitment to serving with unity,' Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Creem and House Majority Leader Michael Moran said in a joint statement. Last legislative session, lawmakers That drew scrutiny from news media, watchdog groups, and In a separate statement Monday, Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen E. Spilka said the deal draws from 'At the beginning of this session, we committed our respective chambers to deliver a transparent and efficient legislative process that meets the moment,' the Democrats said. The accord announced Monday marked a major step forward for Democrats who've spent much of the first five months of this session Advertisement The Legislature has passed a variety of spending bills so far this year, including a But The debate over the rules package itself had been a source of tension. Spilka last month took a swipe at the House after she said one of her chamber's members was blocked from testifying remotely at a joint House-Senate hearing, a decision based on a House rule that requires committee members to participate in person. The House also pushed a proposal requiring the Legislature keep a record of lawmakers' attendance at committee hearings, which would be published online. Moran, who led the chamber's negotiations over the rules, had publicly charged that Senate members often miss hearings, noting that the Senate chair of one committee The Senate ultimately agreed to take and post hearing attendance reports on the Legislature's website, though the Senate will allow its members to participate remotely. This is a developing story and will be updated. Samantha J. Gross of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Matt Stout can be reached at
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Our job is not to chase social media clicks,' House Rep. says
BOSTON (WWLP) – The House of Representatives passed its rules package on Tuesday, and they are hoping to extend traditional session deadlines and increase transparency for their branch. The House is looking to make significant changes to the structure of committees–bi-partisan and bi-cameral groups of lawmakers who determine the fate of bills. Under the new House rule, lawmakers would need to report bills out of committee on a 60-day deadline in an effort to prevent future logjams of major bills at the end of the session. Coalition for Homeless Individuals calls for budget funding The House said it also looks to publish bill summaries, submitted testimony, and committee votes, rising to calls for more transparency from the public. 'Taken as a whole, I really do believe that these changes are historic, transformative,' said Brighton Representative Michael Moran. House Republicans pushed for a rule that would force the House's compliance with an audit by the state auditor, a power newly granted to her via a November ballot question. The ballot question passed with nearly 70% voter approval, but opponents to the rule, arguing separation of powers concerns with an audit, said the voters cannot be trusted to follow the constitution. 'Our job is not to chase social media clicks. Our job is to uphold the constitution,' said Stoneham Representative Michael Day. The amendment to the rules package failed to pass, and the battle between the legislature and the auditor is continuing its trajectory towards the courts. The House and Senate will need to reach a compromise on joint rules before they take effect, with several disagreements to iron out. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Boston Globe
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Mass. House leaders will move to make committee votes public, vow a ‘more accessible' Legislature
Mariano, a Quincy Democrat, indicated the House is ready to adopt similar changes as the Senate. Both The House, for example, will propose posting online the votes cast by individual lawmakers on legislation in joint committees, a change the Advertisement The House is also seeking to require that lawmakers must be physically present for committee hearings, which would reverse a practice embraced during the pandemic to allow lawmakers to participate remotely. The House rule package would also provide a public record of lawmakers' 'hearing attendance' in joint committees, in effect giving voters insight into whether their elected representatives are showing up to hear testimony on bills. 'People want to know how they're voting. We want to know who's there,' Mariano told reporters Thursday. Senators often serve in leadership positions on more committees than House lawmakers, given their chamber, at 40 members, is far smaller than the 160-person House. The Senate earlier this month also passed a rule allowing its members to vote remotely on legislation on the Senate floor, continuing a change that was adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic but has since been scrapped by the House and Advertisement Mariano said the House will seek to require committees to produce and post online 'plain-language' summaries of all bills before lawmakers consider the legislation during hearings. Hearings provide a public forum for advocates and opponents to weigh in, and typically are one of the first steps in vetting legislation. The requirement for easy-to-digest descriptions is similar to a change adopted in the Senate, which sought to have lawmakers themselves file summaries of their bills. Advocates, including the group Act on Mass, have praised that move as a 'step forward for transparency.' The Senate also adopted language requiring it to publicly post summaries of any bills reported out by the chamber's budget committee, through which most major legislation flows. Mariano said he prefers that staff, not lawmakers, summarize legislation going through most committees because lawmakers 'are going to go to the advocates, they are going to go to lobbyists' to produce the summaries, suggesting they might not be forthright about the bill's full impact. 'We want to make sure our members are getting accurate information from their staff,' he said. But it's unclear if another major piece of committee work — the public testimony it receives from advocates, lobbyists, and others — will be universally available outside of the four walls of the committee hearing room in which it is offered. The Senate's rules proposal would require it be made public, but Mariano said he prefers to leave that to the committee chair's discretion. Advertisement 'The intent is to, as much as possible, make as much testimony as public as we can, with [the] understanding that there are some sensitive things,' said House Majority Leader Michael Moran, a Brighton Democrat. 'You've got to be careful. Some people don't want that testimony made public for different reasons.' The proposals, which the House is slated to vote on Tuesday, follow a session in which lawmakers That drew scrutiny from news media, watchdog groups, and The Legislature is not bound by the state's public records law, nor its open meeting law. State Auditor Diana DiZoglio and advocates have repeatedly criticized it as being Mariano said DiZoglio's audit push and the calls for more transparency were not his motivation to pursue the rule changes. He said the 'pressure' came from a desire to avoid the crush of major bills lawmakers juggled last summer. For decades, the Legislature has operated under rule that lawmakers wrap up formal sessions by the end of July every two years. The Senate proposed keeping that July 31 deadline in place for some bills, but allowing lawmakers to take votes through the end of the two-year session on so-called conference committee reports. Those are agreements on major bills that are hammered out between both chambers, usually in secret negotiations, and are designed to reconcile differences between similar bills passed by the House and Senate. Advertisement House leaders on Thursday didn't release details of how they, too, might change the calendar, but Mariano said they'd likely try to 'fine tune' the Senate proposal. In a potentially major shift in practice, Mariano said he also wants to move away from That practice means lawmakers take fewer roll call votes, which means voters have fewer opportunities to see where their elected representatives come down on specific policy proposals and thus less information to judge their performance. In recent years, including last session, the Legislature has tended to leave many of the most complex bills to pile up at the end of its formal sessions. For many bills, that means they either To move bills along faster, Mariano said the House will propose that committees, in most cases, must act on bills within 60 days of considering that legislation in a hearing. Committee chairs would be allowed to request a 30-day extension. When a bill emerges from a committee, it's not guaranteed to pass or even make it to the House floor. But the reshaped process could help more quickly narrow the list of bills that could emerge for a vote. The 'goal,' Mariano said, is to pass more bills and fewer omnibus packages, which would require a change in practice by House leaders. Advertisement 'The bills are getting too big,' Mariano said. 'We want to keep these things moving so that there's no temptation to sort of pile them all into one big yoke and get it through in the end. We're hoping that we can deal with these things as they come up.' Matt Stout can be reached at
