On April 19th, a coalition of national voting rights groups working on behalf of Georgia residents and advocacy groups secured a landmark settlement to ensure that voter registration opportunities are offered to all public assistance applicants, as is required by the National Voter Registration Act.
If you think your employer knows more about your 401(k) plan's fees than you do, think again. Sponsors of some 401(k) plans don't understand the fees they're paying toward plan administration, says a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The GAO reported on one case, in fact, where a relatively large plan underestimated its recordkeeping costs by $58,000. And more than 90 percent of plan sponsors don't use free tools the government supplies to help compare costs among 401(k) plan providers, the report says.
Mutual fund fees in 401(k) plans can look tiny—a median of 1 percent of assets per year, says financial-data provider Morningstar. But over a lifetime of saving, they can really scramble your nest egg. A recent study by Demos, a research and advocacy group, found that an American household of two median-income earners will pay, on average, almost $155,000 in 401(k) fees over 40 years. Yes, you read that right.
Your retirement account statement likely does not tell you this, but fees are adding up on your IRA or 401(k) over time – and they can be substantial, as much $155,000 for a median income, two-earner family over a lifetime.
That was not a misprint. In many areas, that amount will buy you a nice home.
The research and advocacy group, Demos, outlines the cost of retirement funds in a new report.
Yikes! The advocacy group Demos reports that a two-income couple — earning a median income over their careers — spends an average of $154,794 during their working lives on 401(k) fees. Fees, Demos says, eats up nearly one-third of their investment returns.
A higher income couple pays even more in fees: $277,969.
The report is timed to the two-day federal trial that starts tomorrow morning that will redraw Kansas’ legislative districts. If the Court were to adopt the House’s proposed map, Kansas would end up with a dubious distinction: having the nation’s most extreme instance of prison-based gerrymandering in a state legislative district.
The story as it now stands for Facebook's IPO supports a broader narrative depressingly familiar to most Americans: Which is that the stock market is a rigged game.
The J.P. Morgan Chase JPM -0.68% & Co. unit whose wrong-way bets on corporate credit cost the bank more than $2 billion includes a group that has invested in financially challenged companies, including LightSquared Inc., the wireless broadband provider that this month filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The full details of JP Morgan’s trading strategy aren’t known, but Wallace Turbeville, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker and currently a fellow with public policy think-tank Demos, doesn’t buy the bank’s explanation that it was simply hedging. “How can you possibly lose that kind of money on a hedge?” he asks. “The answer is, they weren’t off setting risk.
On the third anniversary of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act being signed into law, the average debt has declined, but many Americans are still using credit cards as a way to cover basic living expenses, according to a national survey from the policy center Demos.
In the latest unfortunate news at the intersection of motherhood and politics, stay-at-home moms are doing worse emotionally than their working counterparts.
With anti-regulatory fervor gripping Washington, it’s difficult to imagine both parties working together to enact successful public safeguards that protect Americans. But it wasn’t that long ago that strong, bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate took action to defend consumers against predatory practices in the credit card industry. Three years ago today, President Obama signed the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act (Credit CARD Act) into law.
The economy may be growing again, but many Americans are still in a cash crunch.
In the past year, 40% of low- and middle-income households used credit cards to pay for basic living expenses, such as rent or mortgage bills, groceries, utilities, or insurance, according to survey released Tuesday by think tank Demos.
Washington, D.C. -- The United States Supreme Court should not summarily reverse the decision of the Montana Supreme Court upholding a state law restricting corporate spending in Montana elections, argue former acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger and Professor James Sample of Hofstra Law School in an amicus brief filed today and authored by Arnold & Porter LLP and Demos.
It's no secret that Facebook's IPO will feed one of the most troubling trends in America today: the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite.
New York— Today, leaders in the House of Representatives introduced a bill that would dramatically expand Americans’ fundamental freedom to vote: the Voter Empowerment Act of 2012 (VEA). The far-reaching reforms reflect the importance of cutting through the needless red tape that is restricting too many eligible Americans’ ability to register and vote. Demos applauds the goals of co-sponsors Reps. John Lewis, James Clyburn, Steny Hoyer, John Conyers, Robert Brady, and Keith Ellison, among others.