The report’s first chapter, Jobs and the Economy, explores how long-term trends and the current tumultuous economic environment has taken a toll on young Americans’ employment prospects, paychecks, and ultimately their earnings for years to come. Unemployment and underemployment rates for young Americans remain dangerously high, and almost 60 percent of employed young people say they would like to work more hours. At the same time, there is also a clear wage pay gap, gender pay gap, and education pay gap.
A new report from Demos looking at The Economic State of Young America shows that “average [higher education] tuition is three times higher today than in 1980.” “Average tuition at public 4-year colleges was $7,600 in the 2010 academic year, up from $2,100 in 1980,” the report notes, while “average tuition at private 4-year colleges nearly tripled in a generation, increasing from $9,500 in the 1980 academic year to $27,300 in 2010.” At the same time, the federal Pell Grant is covering an ever smaller percentage of th
All sorts of big life decisions are postponed as well, especially within minority groups. Almost half have delayed purchasing a home, a third have delayed moving out on their own or starting a family and a quarter have delayed getting married.
Almost half of single women over the age of 65 face the real crisis of outliving their financial resources. Most have very limited resources and are forced to make daily trade- offs between paying bills, forgoing home maintenance or medical needs. New research shows that economic insecurity among single senior women is on the rise. Between 2004 and 2008—even before the full impact of the Great Recession had been felt—economic insecurity among this population subgroup increased by one-third, from 35 percent to 47 percent.
Today the average college grad leaves school with just over $24,000 in debt, an amount that eats up $276 every month if you stretch the payments out over ten years and it’s a government loan with a 6.8 percent interest rate. Of course, one out of five students also carries more costly private loans, where interest rates are in the double digits and fees add to the balance. This debt-for-diploma system is what counts as opportunity in America today.
Today, the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary passed, on a party-line vote, one of the most sweeping attacks in decades on government protections.
The Rules from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) bill would require that any major regulatory rule issued by a federal agency be affirmed by a majority vote in both the House and Senate. The vote would have to take place within 70 days.
A two-hour “teach-in” Monday afternoon prompted by the Wall Street protest produced an array of ideas from economists and their students about how to counter big-monied interests and nurture a more egalitarian society that values genuine wellbeing over raw growth.
The forum, organized by the Gund Institute of Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, drew more than 200 people to the Ira Allen Chapel and offered a mix of rousing rhetoric and lower-key policy-speak.
A few decades ago, it also would have been difficult to imagine how such a Kol Nidre service could have come together. Like Occupy Wall Street and its growing number of spin-offs, these events happen because of the extensive use of social media by savvy organizers who don’t need or seek the blessings of communal leadership.
Here's one more reason to be puzzled by the GOP's animus toward green jobs: It turns out that the clean economy is disproportionately fueling economic growth and opportunity in states that tend to send Republicans to Congress -- states that are also struggli
As the protests against Wall Street enter their third week, community groups and unions are beginning to join the demonstrations. The diverse group has staged almost daily marches and has been pretty much spontaneous and leaderless. Some protesters want the group to have specific goals.
Even before the full impact of the Great Recession hit, seniors were seeing their retirement security steadily and rapidly destroyed. The elimination of secure pensions for most Americans combined with rising costs of basic expenses has resulted in a dramatic rise in senior economic insecurity.
A photo voter ID law signed by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is unnecessary, unfair, restrictive and intentionally discriminates against African-American and Latino voters, a coalition of civil rights groups will argue in a letter to the Justice Department on Wednesday.
And, says Anastasia Christman of the National Employment Law Project, "his focus on putting young people to work is critical for communities of color." The plan contains funding for summer job and youth work programs.
Distinguished Senior Fellow and president of CivWorld and the Interdependence Movement Ben Barber recounts his whereabouts on 9/11 and explains why borders don’t matter anymore.
In their new book, "Good Jobs America: Making Work Better for Everyone," Paul Osterman and Beth Shulman argue that the United States needs to worry about not just creating millions more jobs but also ensuring that the jobs are good ones.
Law that tries to exclude human judgment of right and wrong always veers towards unintended places - as with the Rockefeller drug laws, or "three strikes" laws that send petty criminals to jail for life.
On Thursday, President Obama will deliver a major speech on America's employment crisis. But too often, what is lost in the call for job creation is a clear idea of what jobs we want to create.