Want a credit card? New rules make it tougher

December and January are the biggest months of the year for new credit card applications, but this year some applicants will have a tougher time getting a card. Financial contributor Carmen Wong Ulrich stopped by "The Early Show" to explain the new rules and how it will affect you.

Under the new rules, applicants can't list their household income when filling out an application - instead, they must list individual, personal income.

On the surface, it sounds like a great idea not giving cards to people who can't pay the balance, but it can have serious implications for some, like stay-at-home parents or non-working spouses.

A stay-at-home spouse or partner can of course be added as a secondary cardholder but that can become problematic when a relationship crumbles.

Check out the video below for more on this story and hear about an alternative way to get a card:

[Dreadnut]

Whoop-tee-doo.... Applicants get to lie about individual income instead of household.

[GRTony]

Yep... it's not like the credit card companies are going verify/validate the applicant's income. Credit Card companies are only interested in enslaving people for as long as they can.

[askagain]

This is a throwback to the 1970's and 1980's when not eveyone qualified for a creit card. Those of us who wanted credit cards had to prove that we were credit worthy. Unemployed people and students were not offered credit cards. Dependent spouses also were not offered credir cards. Usually, we had to start off with a department store credit card to build our credit to qualify for major credit cards such as VISA or Mastercard. This seems so radical yet was common practice before credit card companies started to offer credit cards to anyone who breathed and walked. Not everyone is going to like sound economic practices.

[watkinsjr2000]

If everything said in this story is totally accurate, then this is an idiotic regulation.It was stated in the clip that only individual EARNED income could be considered when applying for credit. This would preclude dividend & interest income(which aren't considered earned income)from being used by a bank to determine if someone is credit worthy.That could lead to the absurd situation of Sam Walton's widow being denied a Visa card by a bank (despite the fact she's worth many BILLIONS of dollars and could quite possibly afford to buy the entire bank outright) because her massive income is all from passive investments.This new law obviously needs some fine tuning.

[afmcalax]

It should be tough to get a credit card. If you stay at home and have no income, then there should be another person on the card to guarentee payment. You might say it is hard if they break up, but it would harder to collect if they broke up also. Credit should only be given to people that can manage it correctly.