Over the last decade, an increasing number of cities and states passed laws limiting the use of credit checks in hiring, promotion, and firing. These laws have been motivated by the reality that personal credit history is not relevant to employment and that employment credit checks prevent otherwise qualified workers with flawed credit from finding jobs, and that unemployed workers and historically disadvantaged groups, including people of color, are disproportionately harmed by credit checks.
In a recent report, Demos and the Public Interest Research Group showed how many viable candidates, including many candidates of color, struggle to compete against better-funded incumbents.
With the 2016 Presidential election bringing renewed attention to rising college costs, UC Berkeley researchers have just released a groundbreaking study on broad and growing financial inequalities in U.S. higher education. Entitled “The Financialization of U.S. Higher Education,” it’s available online here.
When we agreed to help reform the NYPD’s stop and frisk practice in the landmark class action Floyd v. the City of New York, we knew we were taking on a great responsibility.
Public financing of elections, as a state and local democracy reform, can help enhance the political voice and power of working-class people and people of color. It is an effective antidote to the outsized influence corporations and major donors currently have on both politics and policy.
The idea of a property-owning democracy is no longer the reality in the United States. Edward Wolff finds that the wealthiest 10 percent own 90.9 percent of all stocks and mutual funds, 94.3 percent of financial securities but only 26.5 percent of the debt. For the middle class, their home makes up 62.5 percent of their limited wealth.
The idea of a property-owning democracy has long roots in American political thought. In their book, The Citizen's Share, Joseph R. Blasi, Richard B. Freeman and Douglas Kruse argue that the Founding Fathers wanted everyone (well, everyone who was white and male) to own a small slice of property. Both Madison and Washington praised the relatively equal distribution of property in the United States (compared with Europe). Thomas Jefferson wrote, "It is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible be without a little portion of land.
The 2016 presidential election will be the second since the court's disastrous Citizens United decision and the first without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act in place. That means big donors will have more sway over elected officials to dictate the agenda.
When Bartels compared the policy preferences of the rich and poor to actual policy results (with controls) his results were disturbing. He finds that low-income preferences had virtually no effect on policy outcomes.
The human tragedy of Flint, Michigan is agonizing. Thousands of children have been subjected to lead and other chemical poisoning, not to mention adults, just to save a few dollars in a process driven by raw politics and underlying racism.
The explosion of “dark money” spent in the political system in the United States threatens racial equity in the United States making it harder for Blacks and other minorities to gain a foothold in the middle class and fully participate in the democracy, according to a recent report by Demos, a public policy group.