In the aftermath of the financial crisis, plenty of Americans have seen their credit scores tank. But can that really affect your ability to get a job? Yes, because employers increasingly are relying on workers' credit histories in screening applications.
Despite millennials' lingering reputation as financial delinquents, it turns out not everyone drowning in credit card debt has a newly-printed college diploma and a stack of student loan bills.
Harsh, an IT professional from Tuscola, Illinois, is 62, around the age at which a lot of people start actively planning to retire to a white-sandy beach with a frozen margarita in hand.
Harsh's debt snuck up on her as she helped her two daughters with college and living costs. She went back to school after a divorce and dealt with unexpected expenses such as big dental bills. Now she has about $300 a month in minimum payments, spread across three credit cards, and the balance never seems to go down because of all the interest she is paying.
If you consider yourself part of the middle class, you could be forgiven for not standing at the ready after President Obama called for you to be reignited.
New York, NY -- In his State of the Union last night, President Obama hit on four key issues where Demos is engaged and where progress is long overdue: voting reform, the minimum wage, universal pre-K, and higher education.
On the bipartisan voting commission, Brenda Wright, Vice President of Legal Strategies:
High unemployment and underemployment forced one in four Americans to pull money out of a retirement plan to make ends meet.
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A separate study on credit-card debt done by Demos, which surveyed some 997 households, warns that middle-income households of those nearing retirement are running up huge credit-card bills.
According to the study, “Older Americans now have higher overall credit-card debt than younger people — a reversal of the trend Demos found in its 2008 survey.”
Alfred Carpenter, 52, was working for a high-end shoe store in 2007, when the recession put the company out of business. A long-time salesman, Carpenter wasn't worried about getting another job, but then broke an ankle a few months later and ended up in the hospital. With no insurance and a $50,000 emergency room bill, he filed for bankruptcy protection.
Then his troubles got worse. One employer after another rescinded job offers after checking his credit report, he says. He finally found work, but at a fraction of his usual pay.
Which is better for a country’s well-being: $10 million spent constructing a jail, or $10 million spent producing a line of smartphones? How about clear- cutting rain forests to produce $10 million in lumber? Or a storm that requires $10 million in repairs?
This Explainer explores how the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is used in measuring our economic growth and whether alternative measures are also needed to provide a more comprehensive outlook of economic progress.
It falls into the good-luck-with-that category, but nevertheless the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group and nine other organizations have announced they’re forming a coalition aimed at getting the Wisconsin Legislature to put an advisory referendum on the ballot about the growing problem of unlimited campaign spending.
Washington, DC: Today, a petition on the White House website urging President Obama to “use the State of the Union to call for a constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics” exceeded the 25,000 signatures necessary to guarantee an official White House response. The petition, launched by the groups Free Speech For People, Avaaz, People For the American Way, and Demos on January 8 took less than two weeks to cross the threshold.
It took just 32 billionaires and corporations giving Super PACs an average of $9.9 million apiece to match every single dollar given by small donors to Romney and Obama in the 2012 election cycle, according to new report.
Not since the years before the Watergate scandal has a small cadre of mega-donors influenced our elections as much as wealthy givers such as casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, Texas homebuilder Bob Perry, and Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner did in 2012.
A recent survey by Demos found that middle-income Americans 50 years of age and older have more credit card debt, on average, than younger Americans, a finding opposite of that reported in a 2008 survey.
The report revealed that older American households had an average credit card balance of $8,278 in 2012, while households with members under age 50 carried an average credit card balance of $6,258.
New York, NY — New York activists will rally for democracy under the banner “Money Out, Voters In” on Saturday, January 19, the weekend marking civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday and the anniversary of the damaging Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision. People in over 65 cities and 32 states are rallying to demand lawmakers pass measures that limit the corrosive influence of money in politics and expand democratic participation at the polls.
Elderly Americans are carrying more credit card debt, according to a new survey.
The survey reports the main reason is due to job loss and medical bills, not because of a lack of financial responsibility.
The study looked at 997 middle-income households that were carrying credit card debt for at least three months. Of the respondents, households age 50 and older had an average credit card balance of $8,278 compared to an average debt of $6,258 for households under age 50.
WHAT: Telephone press conference to demand an end to the growing threat to our democracy posed by voter suppression and unlimited corporate and special interest spending in elections. Momentum is growing nationwide, with more organizations, policymakers and citizens calling for change. On the call, groups will preview rallies and demonstrations being held nationwide on or around Saturday, Jan. 19, to coincide with the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision (Jan. 21), Martin Luther King Jr.
Older Americans rely on credit cards as their financial safety net and pay down less of their debt than younger consumers, a new study shows.
Last year, the low- and middle-income 50-plus population had an average credit card balance of $8,278, compared with the younger generation's balance of $6,258, according to research conducted by Demos, a liberal public policy organization on behalf of AARP.