1. Have you ever wondered why convicted felons have a hard time getting jobs? Absolutely anyone who has a criminal record in anything ever gets barred from employment in most legitimate businesses. Mine was a felony child endangerment from 2021, and has nothing to do with my ability to mow lawns, dig holes, clean windows, work with customers, clean gutters, operate heavy machinery, and so on.

2. There are several first impressions, which are all somewhat the case:

  - People have their bias, and figure a criminal might re-do the crime.
  - Sometimes there's a holistic connection between a pattern of criminal behavior and other elements that wouldn't be favorable to a business.
  - Some people think "once a criminal, always a criminal".

3. However, this doesn't address the central problem I'm smack-dab in the middle of. My felony circumstances were me acting in good faith, and everyone can see in an interview that I'm one of the hardest and honest workers they'd ever hire. If reputation was the direct culprit, the interview would clear these sorts of things up.

4. No, the truth is far more inhuman and unchanging. It has to do with our data reputation.

  - Insurance companies run a calculator to assess risk, and they grab whatever they can legally get their hands on.
  - Some of these risks are not tied to causation at all, and may simply be correlation (e.g., atheist/agnostic drivers may be more risk-averse simply because they have more to lose from death than the religious).
  - There's nothing against the law (at least right now) to prevent an actuarial table from calculating an employee's criminal history into a risk assessment.
  - Therefore, all criminals get looked over for all companies that must pay liability insurance. $100-400 more per month in insurance for that guy with a domestic assault, or nothing more for the 16-year-old.

5. Therefore, except for someone in person taking an additional risk through rapport, I (and many others) can save tons of trouble by avoiding all jobs where:

  - That company is nearby other entities' property.
  - They're trying to run a fully compliant operation.
  - That company is looking intensely at the bottom line.

The "[Ban the Box](https://bantheboxcampaign.org/)" movement attacks the wrong problem by the employer giving a conditional offer for employment before a background check, since they'll just revoke that conditional offer as soon as the background check shows up. The only cure is to illegalize its actuarial use, similarly to how your auto insurance can't assess risks from your religion, last name, web browsing history, or social media posts.