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Home ownership is commonly understood as the quintessential marker of having arrived in the middle class: a family’s home is often the single largest asset that they own and has traditionally served as an important vehicle for wealth accumulation and economic security. 

Policy Briefs
Amy Traub
Tamara Draut
David Callahan

Provide 12 weeks of paid benefits to employees who need time off work to care for a new child, a sick family member, or their own illness. The self-financing trust is funded by premiums paid equally by employers and employees.

Policy Briefs
Amy Traub
Tamara Draut
David Callahan

Unions were instrumental in creating the American middle class, and today they continue to empower millions of Americans to bargain for wages and benefits that are capable of sustaining a middle-class standard of living.

Policy Briefs
Amy Traub
Tamara Draut
David Callahan

Give states additional Child Care and Development Block Grant funding to double the number of children served by child care assistance, make the federal Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit refundable, and expand Head Start and Early Head Start.

Policy Briefs
Amy Traub
Tamara Draut
David Callahan
The United States needs to be reimagined. A recent study from the Pew Research Center tells us that in economic terms the middle class "has suffered its worst decade in modern history." It's shrinking. With jobs scarce, wages declining and the nation's wealth concentrating ever more intensely at the
In the media
Bob Herbert
A new report from the New York Fed suggests that even while the rest of household debt improved since March, driven by decreasing credit card and housing debt, student loans have worsened.
Blog
Joseph Hines
Many Florida families have been paying up to 25 percent of median income for public in-state college costs — out of reach for some middle-class parents who have taken recent pay cuts or lost jobs, according to a new study.
In the media
Donna Gehrke-White
In a speech at the University of Kansas in February of the tumultuous year 1968, Robert F. Kennedy spoke of the plight of the poorest Americans, those struggling in devastated rural areas, and on Indian reservations and in the tenements and housing projects of the inner cities. He was blunt. “We
Blog
Bob Herbert
Despite some rain showers, over 60 percent of the country is still suffering from drought conditions and nearly a quarter is suffering from extreme or exceptional drought. We’ve detailed how this has impacted agriculture and ranching and over 60 percent of Iowa’s land is still classified as being in
Blog
J. Mijin Cha
MIAMI – In just three years Florida’s higher education funding per student decreased 40 percent, according to a new report by national public policy center Demos and the Florida-based Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy (RISEP). As a direct result, Floridian families now spend 25% of
Press release/statement