Your credit score is your economic destiny. It determines where you can live, what you can buy, and sometimes even what job you can get. But how do credit bureaus come up with these all-encompassing numbers? Teo tells Clare about the data that credit scores feed on, and how little we really know about how they're calculated.

Have a question about how our world works? Want to know more about credit scores? Email the Control F team at controlf@kuow.org

Support the show by supporting our home, KUOW Public Radio in Seattle.

Sources in this episode:
Creditworthy: A history of consumer surveillance and financial identity in America, Josh Lauer, 2024
Credit Access in the U.S., U.S. Census Bureau, 2025
Affordable credit poised to save consumers billions, Alex Horowitz, Pew Charitable Trusts, 2023 
WA’s new ban on medical debt in credit reports at risk of federal override, Jake Goldstein-Street, Washington State Standard, 2025
Interview with Josh Lauer, Author of Creditworthy 
Interview with Alex Horowitz, Project Director at Pew Charitable Trusts
Interview with Maya Lau, Host of Other People’s Pockets 
Interview with Jazmin, founder of Budget with Jazmin

Your credit score is your economic destiny. It determines where you can live, what you can buy, and sometimes even what job you can get. But how do credit bureaus come up with these all-encompassing numbers? Teo tells Clare about the data that credit scores feed on, and how little we really know about how they're calculated.
Have a question about how our world works? Want to know more about credit scores? Email the Control F team at <a href="mailto:controlf@kuow.org">controlf@kuow.org</a>
Support the show by supporting our home, <a href="https://www.kuow.org/donate/control-f-notes">KUOW Public Radio</a> in Seattle.
Sources in this episode:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/creditworthy-a-history-of-consumer-surveillance-and-financial-identity-in-america-josh-lauer/17b6a37b0598ad40?ean=9780231216630&amp;next=t&amp;">Creditworthy:</a> A history of consumer surveillance and financial identity in America, Josh Lauer, 2024</li>
<li><a href="https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2025/adrm/ces/CES-WP-25-45.pdf">Credit Access in the U.S.</a>, U.S. Census Bureau, 2025</li>
<li><a href="https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2023/05/affordable-credit-poised-to-save-consumers-billions">Affordable credit poised to save consumers billions</a>, Alex Horowitz, Pew Charitable Trusts, 2023&nbsp;</li>
<li><a href="https://www.kuow.org/stories/wa-s-new-ban-on-medical-debt-in-credit-reports-at-risk-of-federal-override">WA&rsquo;s new ban on medical debt in credit reports at risk of federal override</a>, Jake Goldstein-Street, Washington State Standard, 2025</li>
<li>Interview with Josh Lauer, Author of Creditworthy&nbsp;</li>
<li>Interview with Alex Horowitz, Project Director at <a href="https://www.pew.org/en/">Pew Charitable Trusts</a></li>
<li>Interview with Maya Lau, Host of <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/other-peoples-pockets/id1655009015">Other People&rsquo;s Pockets</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li>Interview with Jazmin, founder of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/budgetwithjazmin/?hl=en">Budget with Jazmin</a></li>
</ul>

Control F is a podcast about data — hard, fuzzy, surprising, and sometimes unreliable data — and all the ways it influences our daily lives. In each episode, we dig deep on a topic and search through research, algorithms, and assumptions to bring you insights on how stuff works. In a world ruled by numbers, Control F reads between the (spreadsheet) lines to find the bigger story.

Control F is a podcast about data &mdash; hard, fuzzy, surprising, and sometimes unreliable data &mdash; and all the ways it influences our daily lives. In each episode, we dig deep on a topic and search through research, algorithms, and assumptions to bring you insights on how stuff works. In a world ruled by numbers, Control F reads between the (spreadsheet) lines to find the bigger story.

Control F is a podcast about data — hard, fuzzy, surprising, and sometimes unreliable data — and all the ways it influences our daily lives. 

Control F

Two journalists explain the history of credit scores, how credit scores are calculated and the complex ways that financial data impacts our daily lives. 