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According to human resources surveys, nearly half of all employers now conduct credit checks as part of their hiring process. Yet there is little basis for this practice.

That seems like an odd question to ask, since a central goal of progressive politics is to revive government as a powerful agent for improving American life -- expanding protections for workers, the poor, consumers, investors, and the environment. Amen to all that.

Watching conservatives in Congress beat up on the poor is enough to shake your faith in the American people. They elected this crew after all, and while gerrymandering may explain some of what's going on, there's no doubt that the House majority speaks for a fair number of people.

African Americans have been pummeled by the recent financial crisis, including facing the most adverse consequences of credit card debt and higher interest rates, according to a recently released study by the NAACP and Demos, a U.S.-based research and policy center.

Many energy companies are hoarding oil and gas, despite the rest of the world’s effort to move to a more environmentally sustainable economic system.

Excerpted from "Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class." Few names conjure the recalcitrant South, fighting integration with fire-breathing fury, like that of George Wallace.

“A relentlessly growing deficit of opportunity is a bigger threat to our future than our rapidly shrinking fiscal deficit.” So said President Obama in his recent speech on increasing economic inequality, which he said “challenges the very essence of who we are as a people.”

Quite like Hollywood's, the glitterati of the university depends on a semi-translucent support crew. There are papers to grade, lab-rats' necks to snap, low-level requisite classes to teach, exams to proctor, online discussions to moderate, etc. As U.S. college enrollment has nearly tripled between

"Helping build Demos has been hugely rewarding, and it's been thrilling to see the emergence of a larger and stronger progressive infrastructure that, 15 years ago, was just a dream for many of us,” said Callahan.

With debate heating up over inequality and social mobility, it's time for yet another airing of one of the least productive debates in American politics: whether it's up to individuals or society to ensure economic success.