This is what happens when you put “Algorithms” in charge of setting debt limits. Many spouses appear to have little or no income.
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The Register reported on it yesterday.
https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/all/2019/11/11/apples_credit_card
It states that Jamie says that she is forced to declare herself as a “homemaker” on her tax returns and doesn’t have any personal income. If her monthly pay packet weighs heavily on her credit rating (I don’t know the US system and how that affects community property rules), it isn’t really a wonder if she gets a low credit rating, unless she entered her husbands income. Someone also commented over on Thurrott that the banks explicitly cannot look at tax returns.
Likewise, Woz’s wife has no personal income, although their case is slightly different, because all the income is wired directly into their joint account from his speaking business.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out and whether being a stay-at-home spouse directly affects your credit limit. Then we would need to see what stay-at-home husbands get as a credit limit, compare to their wives, to see if it is sexist.
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In the US your income has no bearing on your credit score itself. That score is all determined by various factors around your debt, see below.
https://www.wellsfargo.com/financial-education/credit-management/calculate-credit-score/
It is so debt heavy that in the US if you are wealthy and never borrow money for anything ever, eventually your credit score moves toward 0 and then disappears.
But, credit decisions for loans like credit cards do take into account more things than your credit score, such as your income. Tax returns are not included. My wife also has homemaker as her title. Her credit score is actually a few points higher than mine despite her having no direct income of her own. It’s a crazy system that favors keeping people in some kind of revolving debt in order to keep their scores high.
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Yes. I never took out any credit in Germany, until I bought a house with my wife. I never had a German credit card and never had a loan, never failed to pay off my utility bills on time.
Getting a mortgage was pain, as I had 10 years of no credit record.
In fact, when I moved to Germany, I had to get a friend to co-sign my first mobile phone contract, because I wasn’t credit worthy.
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It’s exactly that. It’s a little a better in Canada, though similar. When I lived in the US, I was able to build an insanely high credit score by playing the revolving debt game. Fortunately, it ended well for me; it doesn’t for many. In Canada, my credit rating is just as high, but the limits on my credit cards/lines of credit are more appropriate for someone who has my level of reported income…they’re about 1/3 to 1/2 of what I was granted on my US credit cards/lines of credit.
Ah, the joys of starting over in a new country. Went through the same thing moving to Canada 
The US credit system is crazy. It favors the banks, obviously. A lot of people get into trouble with it for various reasons - out of control spending, borrowing too much, etc… The evidence of how crazy it is can be found in these premium credit cards. If you have good credit and a long credit history, you can get a card with your annual salary as a limit 
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I did and found it extremely thoughtful; it has definitely broadened my perspective (as I would expect from a journalist of her caliber), and I agree with her on the off-putting nature of the initial Twitter post.
For myself, my thoughts are closer to Andy Ihnatko’s. I think Apple has placed themselves in a poor situation by aligning themselves with Goldman Sachs. They have placed themselves front-and-center regarding the card - after all, it’s not called the Goldman Sachs card, but the Apple Card. It only works with Apple Pay. It was announced at an Apple event as such. So - yeah, they do have some ownership in the issues that inevitably arise. And I was not aware of the $5Bil fine against GS - so that just adds insult to injury for me.
None of this says “gender bias”, but for a card that trumpets transparency and ease of use, it was a particularly spectacular fail for reps at both companies to blame the algorithm.
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