Stay-at-Home Mom Fights New Credit Card Rule

CNN Money
May 16, 2012
Ellis, Blake

A grass-roots campaign is gaining momentum against a new provision of the 2009 CARD Act that, starting in October of last year, has made it more difficult for stay-at-home parents to qualify for their own credit cards. The Federal Reserve rule dictates that credit card issuers consider individual income, rather than household income, to determine eligibility. As a result, many parents who rely on their spouse's income feel shut out of access to credit. One Virginia mom whose application for a Target card was rejected has refused to acquiesce to the new guideline, recently launching an online petition to persuade the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- which assumed jurisdiction over the rule last summer -- to amend it. The petition at Change.org already has garnered in excess of 30,000 signatures. "I used to be CEO of a small software consulting business and am now staying at home to take care of a toddler and first grader," wrote one stay-at-home mother on the petition. "If you had to pay someone to do what I do now, it would cost you at least $120,000, which is a lot less than what I used to earn. ... Don't you think I should be allowed to get a credit card on my own?" Holly McCall, the 34-year-old mother of two who organized the petition, delivered the signatures to the CFPB on May 15, supported by a handful of petitioners. Some of the women dressed as 1950s housewives, to illustrate how the rule "feels like a flashback to the 1950s because of the way women aren't empowered financially."
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