Funded by the Brookings Institution, the Helen Bader Foundation, and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, PAID (“Payment Aggregation and Information Dissemination”) is an economic equity initiative addressing access to credit.

It consists of research and implementation of a “best-practices” model that will incorporate currently unreported utility- and rental bill-payment information for central-city Milwaukee residents into nationwide credit databases, resulting in better credit scores/creditworthiness for these residents.

The premise is that these residents possess positive bill-paying track records that are not captured by the national credit data system. The lack of any credit or positive payment history or the presence of any negative incident reported to credit data agencies combine to influence lenders to decline mortgage credit to this market. Other negative consequences that may be ameliorated by the project outcomes include higher insurance premiums, negative response to rental and employment applications, difficulty establishing bank savings and checking accounts, and so forth.



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