Unfortunately, more and more retirees are falling into debt at the exact point in their lives when they should be free from financial worries. Whereas older people paid off their mortgages in generations past, now nearly half of all senior citizens still owe a house note.
But for many, even landing a job was not enough to make ends meet: of those 5 million job openings, nearly half paid less than $15 per hour, leaving only 2.7 million that paid $15 or more per hour. And for workers able to secure only part-time employment, wages were even more inadequate: in 2014, more than one in five part-time workers wanted full-time employment but were unable to find it.
The core finding: there are not enough living wage jobs to go around. And women and people of color are especially impacted by low wages and part-time work.
In my latest at Salon I explore a new working paper by political scientists Stephen Ansolabehere and Brian Schaffner, the most comprehensive examination of voters and nonvoters that has ever been performed. As I note my piece, studies of non-voters have been difficult because of small samples and because people often misrepresent whether they voted.
Last Wednesday a mass shooting in San Bernardino, the 355th this year, prompted a debate about the need for gun control. In an incredibly rare decision, the New York Times ran a front-page editorial calling for gun control.
“Alabama’s recent settlement with the Department of Justice doesn’t address the state’s photo ID law,” Lisa Danetz, the legal director for Demos, which before the deal played a leading role in raising concerns about Alabama’s compliance with Motor Voter, confirmed. “Instead, it relates to the federal requirement that the state must provide voter registration during driver’s license transactions.”
There’s recourse available to people who find themselves in cycles of unpayable debt; it’s called bankruptcy. Unfortunately for student debtors, education loans are exceedingly difficult to discharge in bankruptcy, which makes little sense in an era where college is unattainable for most without student loans, and where student debt is the highest form of non-mortgage debt in the economy.
What’s up with working-class whites? It’s a question that’s been asked for decades, and has been raised again recently in the discussion surrounding an Alec MacGillis piece examining Matt Bevin’s recent election gubernatorial win in Kentucky, which could leave many in Kentucky without Medicaid.
As Black Friday approaches, retailers nationwide are waiting anxiously to see whether the nation’s busiest shopping day will deliver a boost in profits. But perhaps no company has more at stake than Walmart, the shopping behemoth that was the world’s largest retailer until Amazon supplanted it in that role this summer.
However generous paid leave benefits are, whether employees actually use those benefits will depend a lot on the culture they work in and the social pressures they face.
Amazon, for instance, is "notorious for its competitive work environment, and simply having access to leave may not be enough if workers feel they will be penalized in their careers for taking it," said Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at Demos.
This is doubly true for fathers, who are especially unlikely to take leave no matter where they wo
All in, 401(k) fees can range from 50 basis points up to 3 percent, said David Walters, a CPA and certified financial planner with Palisades Hudson Financial Group. Any plan charging more than 1 percent, Walters insisted, should be seen as suspect.
"Taken over an employee's lifetime, that can make a huge difference in what [workers] get to spend in retirement," Walters said.
In light of the terrorist attack in Paris, lawmakers across the country are demanding President Obama shut down our borders and stop the resettlement of Syrian refugees in America, stoking widespread fear about these men, women and children. At this moment, twenty-four governors have announced that their states will not accept Syrian refugees.
Higher turnout has the possibility of weakening the donor class’s grip on policy. It could also reduce the influence of the extreme right wing on politics. It’s not surprising that the GOP, which benefits from a low-turnout, strong-donor environment, supports voting laws that tend to reduce turnout.
Expanding access to the polls is not a partisan issue—vetoing it is. The Democracy Act passed as a pro‑voter issue, and the governor’s veto does the exact opposite.
The concept of Short-Termism is fast becoming the darling of progressive economic policy wonks. Predictably, the discourse is littered with inaccuracies and half-truths as pundits rush to publish so as not to be left behind. It is time for a serious convening of interested experts to sort through the issues, but none is scheduled. Until one is convened, a brief walk through the weeds is in order.