I’m not super happy with the lack of supporting data, just colorful graphs and a lot of emotional anecdotes but there is a clear disparity that I think warrants greater investigation. I love the credit union movement and was shocked to read this article. I would love to hear your opinions lemmings!
With respect to data, there does seem to be a damning amount of it in the CFPB dataset they analyzed for the article. The fact that approvals were this disproportionate even when accounting for “income, debt-to-income ratio, property value, downpayment percentage, and neighborhood characteristics” is alarming. Specifically with respect to income, approval for lowest-quartile whites exceeded that of highest quartile blacks. Yes, credit score was not available in the dataset, but we know it doesn’t fully explain the gap because of its frequency as a cited reason for denial, and reliance on credit doesn’t really do much to dig NFCU out of this hole IMO.
I’m tempted to agree with the authors assessment that the use of automated tools by the underwriters is a likely contributor. Use a tool trained on historically racist data and practices, and that’s what you’ll get more of.
We have a saying at work regarding data, “garbage in, garbage out”. If they’re using clearly racist historical data they deserve this shitstorm. They really should have known better
That’s a rather old and common concept. GIGO
You’re not wrong, work’s just the first place I heard it
As long as you’re not a software engineer with a decade of experience in, I ain’t shook.
If you are, then I am not mad at you- just whoever was supposed to teach or mentor you.