The company an employee works for makes all the difference. Over the course of a 40-year career, workers at some companies lose tens of thousands of dollars in 401(k) fees and earnings -- sometimes more than double the savings lost by workers at other firms, according to an exclusive analysis of about 2,300 company 401(k) plans by FutureAdvisor, an online financial adviser.
The number of Americans age 60 and over in debt is alarming. A recent report by the AARP’s Public Policy Institute and the research organization Demos revealed that Americans over the age of 50 carried substantially more debt on credit cards — an average balance of $8,278 — than those under 50, whose average balance was $6,258.
Sen. President Donald Williams and 23 other Democratic Senators were cross-endorsed in the 2012 election by both the Democratic party and a third party, but Williams proposed getting rid of the cross-endorsement system Monday because he says it causes confusion for voters.
He told the General Administration and Elections Committee that 44 states have no ability to cross endorse a candidate. He said it’s confusing for voters to have the same candidate appear on two lines on the ballot and could cause problems such as overvoting.
HARTFORD -- Connecticut lawmakers are considering allowing early voting during state elections and eliminating cross endorsements by minor parties.
Through testimony and remarks submitted Monday to the government administration and elections committee, early voting garnered considerable support, while eliminating cross endorsements drew sizable opposition.
Senator Musto, Representative Jutila, Senator McLachlan, Representative Hwang, Members of the Committee. Thank you for having me here today. It gives me great pleasure to come before the Committee on which I served for all ten years of my legislative service and with which I worked so closely in my years as Secretary of the State.
Research has shown that someone with a poor credit history is not automatically a poor job prospect. Nevertheless, millions of Americans who have emerged from the recession with medical debts or a record of late payments are at risk of being denied jobs by companies that use credit histories to screen applicants. Several states have placed limits on this practice. But until the federal government engages the issue more aggressively, employers will consign otherwise qualified applicants to a kind of pariah class that gets shut out of the job market.
The average retail sales job pays only $10.09 an hour, and some retail outlets—notably Walmart, the largest private employer in the world—pay as little as $8.00 per hour. But a handful of large retail companies have made generous compensation a key part of their business models, and it seems to be paying off.
The liberal Connecticut Working Families Party and the conservative Independent Party of Connecticut probably don’t share a lot of ideological common ground.
But they agree on one issue: ending the practice of cross-endorsements would be a bad idea. The two parties were part of a loose coalition of disparate political groups that spoke out at a public hearing at the legislative office building Monday on Senate Bill 1146, which would ban the practice.
Connecticut's experiment with New York-style fusion politics gave Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy two lines on the ballot in 2010, and he needed the votes cast on both to narrowly defeat Republican Tom Foley.
So, it's a little surprising that a push to end cross-endorsements is coming from one of the governor's strongest allies in the legislature, Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn. Or that Malloy is open to the idea.
Demos is a public policy organization working for an America where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy. We are based here in New York City. On behalf of Demos, I thank the Committee on Civil Service and Labor for this opportunity to present testimony on Intro 97-A: The Paid Sick Time Act.
Fittingly, perhaps, Cuomo’s single biggest misstep in office can be tied to the power of moneyed interests. After fighting long and hard, the governor was forced to abandon a scheme to build a $4 billion convention center in Queens, as part of a joint venture with the Genting Group, a Malaysian corporation.
WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan cadre of House lawmakers will move on legislation to deregulate Wall Street derivatives Wednesday, less than a week after Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) released adevastating report on the multibillion-dollar derivatives debacle at JPMorgan Chase.
When Vernardo and Claire Simmons-Valenzuela married, they imagined all the trappings of a middle-class life. Soon enough, they had kids. Claire finished a master's degree. They held jobs as an Army medic and a physician's assistant. They dreamed of next steps: owning a home, taking their first vacation in years. Vernardo would return to school for a bachelor’s in nursing. But when payments for the couple's $187,000 in combined student loan debt came due, most of it accrued during Claire’s graduate education, they put those dreams on hold.
Imagine you’re a finance lobbyist and want to move deregulation and other industry-friendly policies through Congress. While you might think the House Financial Services Committee would be the logical place to do it — since it has jurisdiction over financial issues, naturally — what if there were a sneaky way to maneuver it through a far less scrutinized committee, so most people would have no idea what you were doing?
This is the story of how the world’s largest banks came to love the House Agriculture Committee.
It’s too late for Tonisha Howard, the mother of three in Milwaukee who was fired for leaving work to be with her hospitalized two-year-old. And forFelix Trinidad, who was so afraid of losing his job at Golden Farm fruit store in Brooklyn that he didn’t take time off to go to the doctor—even after he vomited blood.
The job market has been tough for older workers, but did you ever imagine that you wouldn’t land a job because of your credit report?
It’s possible.
As I wrote about in my Forbes blog, Bad Credit Can Cost You a Job, if you’re looking to change careers, find a new job, get promoted, or just hang onto the one you have, a messy credit report can trip you up.
My name is Wallace Turbeville. I am a Senior Fellow at Demos, a national public policy organization working to reduce political and economic inequality, advancing a vision of a country where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy. I am testifying today on behalf of Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of more than 250 organizations who have come together to advocate for the reform of the financial sector. I would also like to thank Marcus Stanley, AFR’s Policy Director, for assistance in preparing this testimony.
The affluent tend to hold a different vision of a just society than the public at large, and it is that vision which tops the political agenda in Washington and in state houses across the country.