The antiregulatory mania of the past three decades and the stagnant wages of most American workers during that period have left families at the mercy of an increasingly predatory financial sector. As a briefing paper by the progressive think tank Demos noted:
Prisoners will soon be bigger players in those high-stakes redistricting fights thanks to a change in federal policy governing how they're to be counted in the 2010 census.
In this week's policy change on prisoner counts, Census officials said they would release data on prison populations to states when they redraw legislative boundaries next year. This gives states more leeway in tallying their prisoners -- a move that could reshape the political map.
If the city's proposal to require all voters to show identification at polls is approved, it will be the state's first municipality with such a rule.
Despite statewide accusations of voter fraud in the recent Senate election, many argue that the new measure could hinder disenfranchised voters from casting their ballots and would add an unnecessary encumbrance to what is meant to be an easy and accessible right.
One of the best things Massachusetts ever did was to allow voter registration at the Registry of Motor Vehicles — and even that logical decision had detractors. But it has brought thousands of new voters onto the rolls. Getting them out to the polls is another story.
10 years later, the end of Glass-Steagall has been blamed by some for many of the problems that led to last fall's financial crisis. While the majority of problems that occurred centered mostly on the pure-play investment banks like Lehman Brothers, the huge banks born out of the revocation of Glass-Steagall, especially Citigroup, and the insurance companies that were allowed to deal in securities, like the American International Group, would not have run into trouble had the law still been in place.
The result of all this has been that many of today's young people--again, especially the poor, those with less education and people of color--have a measurably harder road to travel than their generational elders, according to "The Economic State of Young America," a report published in spring 2008 by Demos, a New York-based research and advocacy organization. Between 1975 and 2005, for instance, the typical annual income for workers between the ages of 25 and 34 decreased across all educational brackets, with the exception of women with bachelor's degrees.
Last week, the Same Day Registration Act was introduced by Senator Russ Feingold (S.1986) and Congressman Keith Ellison (H.R. 3957) requiring states to provide for same day registration (SDR).
Those most likely to be harmed by higher borrowing costs are consumers who are relying on their credit cards to carry them through the economic downturn. According to Demos, a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization, most low- and middle-income households with high debt-stress levels -- the ratio of a family's credit card debt to their annual income -- use their credit cards to pay for unavoidable expenses, such as medical expenses or to cover household essentials after a job loss, not for discretionary items.
Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Paul Kirk will become the 60th Democratic vote in the Senate and the first new Massachusetts senator in a quarter-century on Friday, unless a state court intervenes.
State Republicans are fighting the appointment, but Republicans in Washington indicated they would not intervene.
Gov. Deval Patrick (D) on Thursday named Kirk the temporary replacement for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D), who died last month.
Brenda Wright, Director of Democracy Program at Demos, has posted some insights at the American Constitution Society's blog on the big campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, to be argued before the Supreme Court tomorrow. Here's her take...
Americans have put themselves on a budget. In the first quarter of 2009, the personal savings rate hit to 5.2 percent. And in a recent National Foundation for Credit Counseling survey, 57 percent of Americans said they're spending less than a year ago.
That moderation could outlast the recession, a good thing to most economists and consumer experts.
As the recession picked up steam, credit cards have become a lifeline for some to pay for groceries, utilities, even mortgage or rent payments. More than one-third of low- and middle-income households used credit cards to cover basic living expenses in five of the past 12 months, according to a survey released last month by Demos, a public policy research group.
And in more credit card news, national research and policy firm Demos found that the average credit card debt of low- to middle-income indebted households was $9,827. Credit card debt has quadrupled since 1989, the firm found in its second national survey of households whose incomes fell between 50 and 120 percent of the local median income.
Debt among older U.S. credit card holders has skyrocketed since 2005, as senior citizens increased borrowing to pay for necessities, a new study shows.
Since 2005, revolving debt among low- and middle-income senior citizens -- age 65 or older -- grew 26 percent. In the same period, credit card balances for all age groups rose 3 percent, the public policy group Demos said Tuesday.
Today's 20-somethings are likely to be the first generation to not be better off than their parents." This is the first line of Economic State of Young America, a report released by Demos, a nonpartisan public policy think tank in New York City. And that's a troubling thesis for a generation that grew up being told they can do and be anything.
Cash-strapped older Americans are racking up credit card debt faster than other consumers amid dwindling retirement portfolios and rising medical costs, a study shows.
The study, which will be released Tuesday by Demos, a liberal public policy group, shows that low- and middle-income consumers 65 and older carried $10,235 in average card debt last year, up 26% from 2005. Card debt for all borrowers surveyed rose 3% during that time, to $9,827.
People age 65 and up carried an average of $10,235 credit card debt in 2008, according to a study released Tuesday by Demos, a public policy research group. That's an increase of 26% since the organization's last survey of low- and middle-income borrowers in 2005. The average debt for all borrowers in the survey rose just 3%, to $9,827, during that same time period.
Brenda Wright, director of the Democracy Program at the nonprofit group Demos, one of the groups behind the lawsuits, said 2.6 million people were registered through public assistance offices in 1995-1996, the first two years the law was in effect. But she said registration has dropped precipitously throughout the nation since then, as much as 90% or more in some states.
Lew Daly, senior fellow at Demos, a New York City-based public policy organization and author of God's Economy: Faith-Based Initiatives and the Caring State, praised the text as "a turning point for the church and particularly for the American church, because our nation and our society is both the epicenter of wealth and the epicenter of inequality.