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.
Using political power to keep employees from organizing unions can be highly effective. That’s one forceful lesson to draw from the new figures on union membership.
Annapolis, MD – A coalition of government reform groups praised efforts by Governor Martin O’Malley and Delegate Kiril Reznik that would help Marylanders vote and make sure every vote is counted. The groups also encouraged the Governor to further strengthen his voting package and fix the range of problems Marylanders encountered last year at the polls. Those would include an increase and fair distribution of early voting sites and funding for a new voting system.
US labor markets ended 2012 with a whimper, as Friday’s release of the December unemployment numbers showed all major indicators essentially unchanged.
New York -- In response to the late night passage of a tax deal by the US House of Representatives, Miles Rapoport, president of the national nonpartisan public policy organization Demos released the following statement:
"It is in the nature of a complicated bipartisan agreement that it looks very different depending on what prism you look at it through. Two elements are critically important: what is actually in the bill that passed and the President will sign, and how its passage ‘sets up’ the future fiscal debates.
Eric Scheiderman is leading a seven state coalition to bring suit against the EPA for failing to address methane emissions from the oil and gas industry -- a violation of the Clean Air Act.
The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards has produced a report detailing five areas in which protections significantly help make the December and New Year festivities a safer and more joyful experience.
NEW YORK — Miles Rapoport, President of national policy organization Demos, released the following statement in response to Michigan’s State House and Senate suddenly passing bills Thursday to defund unions and undermine the ability of working people to organize for better pay and benefits:
NEW YORK -- The United States faces a retirement crisis that threatens future retirees and the next generation of workers. The voluntary employer-sponsored retirement system covers fewer and fewer Americans, often leaving Social Security, originally intended as a supplement to other forms of retirement, as the major source of income for 40 percent of older Americans. Even workers still covered by an employer retirement plan have had their benefits weakened.
In early October, billboards began appearing saying "Voter Fraud is a Felony!" punishable by up to 3 1/2 years in prison and fines of $10,000. The billboards only appeared in low-income, minority areas.
Requiring people to show government issued photo identification in order to vote is unnecessary, discriminatory and has the potential to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of people.
The right to vote is just that – a fundamental right which is the cornerstone of American democracy. In the 2012 election, that sacred value was challenged in a way we have not seen in a couple of generations.