Administrative job paying $17 an hour requires applicants to have a minimum 700 credit score to be hired: 'What does my credit score have to do with checking emails and updating spreadsheets?'

That's a pretty high standard for a job paying that little.

We're judged by numbers our whole life. We're judged by how old we are, how much money we make, the number on the scale, and the number of zeros at the end of our bank account. But one number can determine whether we can get a house, an apartment, or whether we can borrow money, and that's a credit score. 

It wasn't too long ago that credit scores didn't exist, and the question of whether a bank would give you a loan was much more subjective. If you walked in there with a firm handshake, looking like the "right kind of person" to loan money to, you could get a line of credit or a mortgage. Credit scores as we know them today were invented after it became illegal to deny someone credit based on their race, nationality, religion, age, or receipt of public assistance. While the credit score system is still not fair and can be incredibly confusing to game, on some level, it is a little fairer than the old way of doing things.