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If it's hard for the current seniors to retire because of student debt, imagine the struggles the current generations will face.
The New York Times recently ran a piece highlighting the growing impact of student debt among older Americans, including the challenge of paying down debt on a fixed income and the increasing number of Americans having their Social Security checks garnished to service defaulted student loans.
(New York, New York) — As the country struggles to find remedies for its growing student debt problem, the national public policy organization Demos has released The Affordable College Compact, a new a proposal for a federal-state matching program to alleviate this burden for students and address many of the contributing factors of rising college costs, most notably state disinvestment.
Fewer American high school students are working summer jobs and part-time jobs than a decade ago, and that will likely mean lower wage-earning capacity in their futures, research indicates. In 2000, about 34 percent of high school students age 16 and older held jobs, but that share had fallen to 18 percent by 2012, data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicate.
When the Senate went to college, they paid an average of just over $11,443. If they attended the exact same institutions today, they’d pay an average of $32,279.
It’s the classic Catch-22 of the doomed job search: How do you get a job? You need experience. And how do you get experience? Get a job. But for many, the unemployment cycle gets further twisted when it intersects with the debt cycle. When prospective employers run credit checks, a bad report becomes a financial scarlet letter. ...
A bill that aims to “prohibit discrimination based on one’s consumer credit history” by banning employers from doing credit checks on job applicants will be the subject of a City Council hearing set for 10 a.m. Sept. 12 at City Hall. [...]
According to an article by Amy Traub titled “Discredited: How Employment Credit Checks Keep Qualified Workers Out of a Job,” the practice of checking credit on prospective employees is legal under federal law.
Demos President Heather McGhee issued the following statement on the Senate's actions this week on the Democracy for All resolution:
“Demos applauds the Senate for debating and voting this week on the Democracy for All resolution, which would clarify that the People have the power to curb the influence of big money on our democracy.
For the past two days, the Senate has debated a bill proposing an amendment to the Constitution that would add, in main part, the following text:
To advance the fundamental principle of political equality for all, and to protect the integrity of the legislative and electoral process, Congress shall have the power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to Federal elections….