In 2012, just 61 large donors to Super PACs giving an average of $4.7 million each matched the $285.2 million in grassroots contributions from more than 1,425,500 small donors to the major party presidential candidates.
A core value of American society is the opportunity to work hard and get ahead. Yet today in the United States, willing job-seekers are facing a new barrier to employment—credit checks. Despite the lack of evidence connecting people’s credit histories to their on-the-job performance, a 2010 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 47 percent of firms use employment credit checks.[1]
Outside spending organizations reported $1.11 billion in spending to the FEC through the final reporting deadline in the 2012 cycle. That’s already a 200% increase over total 2008 outside spending.
Demos is a national, non-profit, non-partisan public policy, research and advocacy organization committed to building an America where democracy is robust and inclusive, with high levels of electoral participation and civic engagement. To that end, the Demos works to reduce barriers to voter participation and engagement, with a particular focus on participation by traditionally disfranchised communities.
It seems reasonable to ask that this law, which would give the Executive Branch the power to extend its version of cost-benefit analysis to independent agencies, show that its benefits are greater than its costs. A close analysis of the proposal’s impact on the financial sector shows that it fails this test.
We, the undersigned consumer, small business, labor, good government, financial protection, community, health, environmental, and public interest groups - strongly urge you to oppose S. 3468, the Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act of 2012. This legislation is likely to be marked up in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee; no hearing has been held on this broad reaching legislation which will empower the Executive Branch at the expense of the Legislative Branch. While S.
More than two years after the recession officially ended, 25 million Americans – 16 percent of the labor force – are still out of work or underemployed.1 There are more than four jobseekers for every job opening. 6.2 million people have been out of work for more than six months. While the economic consensus is that federal stimulus measures prevented an even greater loss of jobs and a more severe downturn,2 these actions were clearly inadequate.
Americans believe that hard work should be rewarded – people who go to work every day should not then be forced to raise their families in poverty. Yet today nearly a quarter of working adults in the U.S. are laboring at jobs that do not pay enough to support a family at a minimally acceptable level. Because their wages are so low, working people are forced to rely on public benefits, from Medicaid to food stamps to rental assistance, in order to make ends meet. Raising work standards would enable them to become more self-reliant and would raise the floor for all working people.
In 1935, with the passage of the Social Security Act, our national leaders made a promise to all citizens: after a lifetime of hard work, no older American would suffer from poverty in their old age. The passage of this landmark legislation was the embodiment of a deeply shared value: a dignified, economically secure retirement. Seventy-five years later, however, our nation has greatly changed and our ability to uphold this value is severely threatened.
Personal debt can stand as an insurmountable obstacle to Americans wishing to build assets and secure a place in the middle class. In addition to the critical last resort of bankruptcy relief, Americans need fair rules to ensure that lenders – from credit card companies to mortgage lenders to vendors of payday loans – don’t impose excessive interest rates, fees, and penalties that make it easier for American to get into serious debt and harder for them to get out.
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.
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.
Sustaining a strong middle class – and a strong and competitive American economy – over the long term requires a foundation of robust public investment.
The manufacturing sector once offered a large supply of stable, middle-class jobs to American workers. Yet middle-income manufacturing jobs have been disappearing from the United States for the past 30 years. While technological innovation has played a much-recognized role in the erosion of the nation’s manufacturing base, policy failures also contributed to the disappearance of industrial jobs. Leveling the playing field for domestic manufacturing will ensure that the U.S.
Investing in a skilled workforce is vital to America’s long-term economic growth and global competitiveness. Even as the Zero-16 Contract for Education proposed earlier would enable young people graduating from high school to pursue college or career training, the Career Opportunity Plan would increase opportunities for those who have already begun their working lives, particularly low-wage workers and the unemployed, to qualify for jobs that can support a middle-class standard of living.