--- title: Credit Scores Are Key to Healing Our Economy and Democracy description: John Hope Bryant argues that raising credit scores could lower crime rates, increase life expectancy, and lessen political division. canonical: https://time.com/7264586/credit-scores-key-healing-economy-and-democracy/ author: John Hope Bryant article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-03-05T12:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:50:41.551Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Are Credit Scores the Key to Healing Our Economy and Democracy? og:description: John Hope Bryant argues that raising credit scores could increase our life expectancies and lessen political division. og:url: https://time.com/7264586/credit-scores-key-healing-economy-and-democracy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcff1f5afb8a16cb3/6998c4a7a97fc05321a7422a/Cracked-Credit-Card.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2120 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: Cracked Credit Card og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Are Credit Scores the Key to Healing Our Economy and Democracy? twitter:description: John Hope Bryant argues that raising credit scores could increase our life expectancies and lessen political division. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcff1f5afb8a16cb3/6998c4a7a97fc05321a7422a/Cracked-Credit-Card.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Are Credit Scores the Key to Healing Our Economy and Democracy? > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=d300640e-1783-4f3d-968e-1f4fea5da2fa&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: TIME Ideas Contributor John Hope Bryant on How to Improve America's Economy with Credit Scores [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Ideas Contributor John Hope Bryant on How to Improve America's Economy with Credit Scores](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EhpKTCpd.m3u8) (3:18)  _Published 2025-03-05. A 700-credit-score America is a more hopeful, more united, and more prosperous America. What if I told you that raising credit scores 100 points, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community - stabilizes America._  by [John Hope Bryant](https://time.com/author/john-hope-bryant/)  ## John Hope Bryant Bryant, the founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, is the author of Capitalism For All: Inclusive Economics and the Future-Proofing of America (Wiley). Mar 5, 2025 12:00 PM UTC A 700-credit-score America is a more hopeful, more united, and more prosperous America. What if I told you that raising credit scores 100 points, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community - stabilizes America.  by [John Hope Bryant](https://time.com/author/john-hope-bryant/)  ## John Hope Bryant Bryant, the founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, is the author of Capitalism For All: Inclusive Economics and the Future-Proofing of America (Wiley). Mar 5, 2025 12:00 PM UTC America’s financial health should be a national concern and addressing this concern starts with our [credit scores](https://time.com/7011017/financial-literacy-america-essay/). The difference between a 500 credit score and a 700 credit score is not just about the interest rate on a car loan—it’s about the quality of your life. Credit scores can determine economic stability, influence longevity, and affect the safety of our neighborhoods, the strength of our communities, and even the resilience of our democracy. A 700-credit-score America is a more hopeful, more united, and more prosperous America. I believe that raising credit scores by 100 points, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community, could stabilize the nation. But right now, too many communities—urban and rural, Black and white—are trapped in a 500-credit-score reality. Financial stress in these communities fuels division, hopelessness, and too often, unrest. When people feel left out, locked out, and economically abandoned, they express their frustration in different ways. Throughout our history, various communities have rioted in the streets and at the ballot box. Both are expressions of the same frustration and pain—a feeling that the system isn’t working for them. But let’s be clear: rioting—whether in the streets or at the ballot box—doesn’t solve the problem. Rioting doesn't put food on the table, fund a child’s education, or build wealth for the next generation. We have to solve our problems and learn to live together. That solution starts with financial literacy and economic empowerment. In a 500-credit-score community, whether in urban Atlanta or rural Appalachia, the financial landscape is bleak. A check-cashing store sits next to a payday lender, which is next to a rent-to-own store, which is next to a title loan lending office, which is next to a pawn shop, which is next to a liquor store. Down the street, there’s a church trying to provide some emotional relief once a week. This is poverty economics—a system that profits off of financial struggle. The poorer you are, the [more things cost](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-cost-of-being-poor-is-rising-and-its-worse-for-poor-families-of-color/) relative to your wealth. [Poor Americans](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/business/economy/interest-rates-inequality.html) pay higher interest rates, higher fees, higher rent. The cost of being poor is expensive. Now, contrast this picture with a 700-credit-score community. Instead of payday lenders, there are banks. Instead of [predatory rent-to-own contracts](https://naacp.org/resources/rent-own-schemes-and-predatory-lending-practices), there is homeownership. Instead of there only being processed fast food choices, there are fresh, whole food options. Instead of economic despair, there is business ownership and investment. Instead of cashing checks, people are writing them. Instead of resentment, there is optimism. These two pictures are so different because higher credit scores don’t just benefit individuals—they stabilize entire communities. According to Operation HOPE’s 700 Credit Score [Index](https://operationhope.org/timeline/hope-launches-community-credit-score-index/), communities with higher credit scores experience lower crime rates because financial desperation decreases. Political division lessens as people feel empowered rather than disenfranchised. Health outcomes improve because financial stress is a major driver of poor mental and physical health. Lifespans even increase. In fact, people in stable, economically secure communities live up to [20 years](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/rich-will-live-fuller-lives-for-up-to-20-years-longer-than-the-poor-official-study-shows-9194348.html) longer. And as more people with access to credit spend, invest, and build businesses, GDP grows and the broader economy thrives. For too long, we’ve been fighting, struggling, and arguing over the wrong things. The real color that matters today isn’t Black or white, or red or blue—it’s green. Economic power is what truly binds us together. A poor white family in West Virginia and a poor Black family in Detroit may have more in common than they realize. Both are navigating a broken financial system, dealing with a lack of economic opportunity, and struggling to escape the 500-credit-score economy. Instead of uniting to fix the system, we’ve allowed the politics of division to turn us against each other. Meanwhile, some of the biggest financial companies keep winning—because while we’re distracted, they keep making money off our financial instability. But an economically literate America is a stronger America. And we can build a better country through financial literacy, homeownership, entrepreneurship, and access to credit. So, how can we help Americans raise their credit scores to the 700 range? First, we must make [financial literacy](https://time.com/6694236/financial-literacy-john-hope-bryant/) a national priority. My [Inclusive Economics](https://time.com/7022544/inclusive-economics-dei-impact-business/) plan is about making sure financial literacy is taught in every K-12 school in America. Every child should graduate knowing how credit works, how to budget, and how to build wealth. Second, we must increase banking access and invest in credit-building programs. Banking deserts should be replaced with real banking solutions that help communities rather than exploit them. FDIC-insured banks must be incentivized to raise credit scores in the communities they serve by tying this activity directly to their Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) credit from federal regulators. To be sure, corporate America has a major role to play. Companies should offer credit-building benefits to employees just like they offer health insurance. They should do this not only because it is good for the communities they operate in but also because a financially secure workforce is a more productive and more stable workforce. State and federal level government policy can also support wealth-building. Policies like expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and the CRA should focus on option-building and credit-building initiatives in underserved areas. A financially stable America is a stronger, safer, and more unified America. It’s an America where people own their futures, rather than renting them. It’s a place where communities thrive instead of just survive. ## Transcript What if I told you that we can increase our credit scores in this country by 100 points? Neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city, for the entire country? This is John O'Bryant. And this is my big idea. The real reason so many Americans are frustrated and stressed out right now is not DUI or immigration or even the politics. It's because our economic realities are just so upside down. The average American has a credit score of 704 and more than $7,000 in credit card debt. The credit score piece. So it's a little deceiving because of averages. And the those who have more skew, those who have less. However, increasing our credit scores in this country countrywide could grow GDP. You can move your credit score and you can help your neighbor move theirs. And if you move, credit scores 100 points. We have found that our research at operation hope that neighborhoods absolutely stabilize the average poor person's credit score. Poor neighborhoods where I grew up are 300 to 500, if you can believe that. And this is black and brown, urban and poor, white, rural. By the way, it's everybody. And those folks have a surviving mindset and live in a distressing situation. And you've got financial predators that are trying to separate them from their dollar. And it's very expensive to be poor. But if we can move credit scores 100 points, you lower inequality through the market. You increase access to credit through the market, you get people in access to get a home loan, which creates wealth and opportunity to become a small business owner and an entrepreneur, to become a contributor to the American economy. And that's something we all want. If we do this at scale, the country gets countless contributors. The cost of credit stops costing us literally billions of dollars in useless interest payments, and you get trillion dollars of GDP, gross domestic product income for the country. The color is not black or brown or red or blue. It's it's green. And we can do something to spread green to, well, more of us. There are some things you can do that are practical, by the way. You can check your credit on a regular basis. Uh, there's probably an error in your credit report if you haven't checked, by the way, that'll pop your credit score 30 points. Just just challenging the error with the credit bureaus. Number two, I want you to put your bills on autopay if you can. It's something you can do personally. Number three, I want you to keep your consumer credit cards at 30% of their limit or below, because that's going to be the thing that moves your credit score the most. The country needs to focus on financial literacy as a national priority. This is the civil rights issue of this generation, as I've said before. In time, it's something that, again, we all can agree on. We need to reinforce the Community Reinvestment Act, which is a federal legislation, and we all need to be having this conversation at the kitchen table. I joke, but I'm serious. Everybody in the world wants to be an American, it appears. But Americans, we need to sort of get our our love for each other back and our love for this American dream back. And this is one of the ways to do it, to repair the ladder and to have unity once again in our spirit and a spirit of togetherness. Because I believe, well, we're better together. 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