Credit Discrimination: 6.5.2.1 General
The ECOA protects applicants from a creditor’s inappropriate consideration of certain sources of the applicant’s income. These protected income sources include income derived from part-time employment, alimony, child support, separate maintenance, retirement benefits, or public assistance.218 These sources of income are related to age, sex, marital status, and public assistance status, and the regulations therefore seek to prevent discrimination based on these sources of income, which could have a disparate impact on a protected group.