New York – This week, the growing practice of employers screening the credit scores of job applicants was dealt a legal blow after the Court of Common Council of Hartford, Connecticut, passed an ordinance prohibiting the practice as part of the city's employment application and promotion process. The legislation is the first municipal ordinance of its kind in the country.
Demos, a national public policy research and advocacy center that supports fair employment and publishes research hiring practices, celebrates the decision.
Dēmos has measured the comparative effectiveness of five leading fiscal proposals. We evaluate the plans in eight categories: jobs and public investment; health care affordability; Social Security income; education; defense policy; fair and adequate revenues; and long-term debt reduction.
We have analyzed the likely impact on voter turnout should California adopt Election Day Registration (EDR). The availability of EDR procedures should give voters who have not previously registered or need to update their information the opportunity to vote. Consistent with existing research on the impact of Election Day Registration in the other states that use this process, we find that EDR would likely lead to substantial increases in voter turnout. We offer the following voter turnout estimates for California under EDR:
Prison-based gerrymandering is the practice of counting incarcerated persons as “residents” of a prison when drawing legislative districts in order to give extra influence to the districts that contain the prisons. The U.S. Constitution requires that election districts be roughly equal in size, so that everyone is represented equally in the political process. But prison-based gerrymandering distorts our democracy by artificially inflating the population numbers — and thus, the political clout — of districts with prisons, while diluting the political power of all other voters.
New York, NY – On the eve of Earth Day, a new report by the policy center Demos spotlights the dangerous effects of the millions of tons of electronics that are thrown away each year by American households.
New York, NY – Today, the Census Bureau released a new data product that will assist state and local governments in avoiding prison-based gerrymandering, a practice which unjustly gives districts that contain prisons extra representation in the legislature. The Bureau’s accelerated release of 2010 group quarters table was hailed by Demos and the Prison
A Washington Investment Trust will generate new revenue for Washington, save local governments money, and make our businesses less dependent on the Wall Street banks that have cut back on lending to small businesses and consumers in our state.
New York – Today, Demos, a national public policy and advocacy center that supports pro-voter election reform, applauded Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer for vetoing an anti-voter measure recently passed by the state legislature. The bill, HB 180, would have rescinded Montana’s so-called “late registration” period, a type of "Same Day Voter Registration" which allows citizens to register and vote at county clerks’ offices on Election Day and the preceding 30 days.
Washington, DC – In response to the President’s address on the federal budget, Demos’ Heather McGhee calls for a bolder commitment to recovery:
"Today, the President of the United States laid out his vision for restoring fiscal responsibility in a way that does not impede our fledgling recovery or violate the core intergenerational promises made during the American Century. Demos applauds the President's leadership.
New York – At a time when anti-government ideology is driving policy making in Washington, a refresher course on the concrete benefits and products of a robust public sector is needed. The programs, infrastructure, and services that have make America great are possible due to an often dreaded source: our taxes.
Washington DC – Today, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Rep. John Larson (D-CT), and actor Alec Baldwin unveiled the Fair Elections Now Act, a bill that would change for the better the way congressional candidates finance elections. Demos, a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization, wrote a letter to the Committee on the Judiciary in support of the legislation.
April 6, 2011 – Demos and the Prison Policy Initiative, two national pro-democracy groups, expressed serious objections today to a lawsuit filed in state court that seeks to reinstate the discredited policy of miscounting incarcerated New Yorkers when state and local legislative districts are redrawn this year.
NEW YORK--At five o'clock today I will be in City Hall Plaza in New York as part of the nationwide series of "We Are One" demonstrations sponsored by a broad coalition of organizations. Participants will be there to stand up on behalf of the workers in Wisconsin, collective bargaining, and on behalf of a country that cares about its entire people.
NEW YORK – As budget debates continue to play out at the state level, it is apparent that Americans everywhere are still suffering from the long-tail of the recession and need jobs, not austerity measures that will likely reverse emergent economic gains. A new report by the policy center Demos addresses this need head-on, calling for an affordable and efficient federal jobs program that could meet critical community and national needs while providing meaningful employment for millions of people who lost their jobs in the Great Recession.
Today there are almost 29 million people in the United States for whom the economy has failed to perform its most important function: providing enough jobs to go around. This reality is dimming the lights on the American Dream. It threatens to steal from an entire generation the dignity that comes from a hard day’s work. Our political leaders have effectively accepted this situation, turning from the moderate job creation strategies of 2009-2010 to an austerity agenda that will cost as many as 1 million more jobs.