Bad credit? Securing a credit card isn't impossible

As we recently reported, more than one-quarter of Americans now have credit scores below 600. Unfortunately for these borrowers, this makes obtaining credit - especially the unsecured revolving type such as a credit card - difficult. While some might argue that making credit less readily available to people with low scores is a good thing (no one wants to repeat the mistake of a few years ago when people could borrow far beyond their means and dig themselves into serious debt), many of today's low-scoring Americans still have credit needs.

The sub-600 population includes a lot of people who have lost a home to foreclosure or had debts written off after losing a job, which means their scores will remain deflated for several years. For those Americans who've seen their credit score tank, securing a credit card may seem impossible, but it's not.

Here are some options: