Thanks to certain progressive senators and Democratic presidential hopefuls, interest in debt-free college is at an all-time high. But what happens next is very much uncertain — people don’t even agree on what debt-free college means, much less how (or whether) to make it a reality. Demos, which put the idea on Washington’s radar via a white paper last May, is now trying to tackle both issues — by wrangling a common definition of the idea, and starting to codify it via Higher Education Act reauthorization.
Thank you Chairman Wolf, Chairman Scibak, and Honorable Members of the Committee for this opportunity to present testimony. My name is Amy Traub and I am a senior policy analyst with Dēmos. Dēmos is a public policy organization working for an America where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy. I’m pleased to be here today to testify on Senate Bill 123, “An Act regulating the use of credit reports by employers.”
No one gets a job as a retail cashier or shopping assistant to get rich.
While the retail industry is known for its paltry pay across the board, skin color has an alarming influence on how many raises and promotions a worker receives.
White retail workers earn $15.32 an hour, on average, while African American and Latino retail workers average less than $11.75, according to a recent analysis of government data by NAACP and Demos, a left-leaning think tank.
The reason is simple: white workers are mor
About 81 percent of black graduates of public colleges and universities have student debt, compared with 63 percent of white graduates, according to report by Washington think tank Demos. Latino students borrow at similar rates to white students.
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Many Americans treat the United States' history of racism, and the racist sentiments that persist in the country today, as background noise. But following Wednesday's massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, that noise has gotten louder. And Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old who has been charged with murdering all nine of the victims, has become the face of this unchecked tension.
Charleston, S.C. -- Four days after a gunman killed nine inside the basement of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, the doors were once again open to welcome congregants.
"We ask that everything be done with dignity. There will be no backpacks, fanny packs or cameras. This is for security purposes," a man doing crowd control at the church told the swarm of people assembled near the door.
Black lives matter. They matter whether they are taken at the hands of a hate-filled 21-year-old in a church prayer meeting, by a police officer who shoots a suspect he fears is armed or in a drive-by shooting on Chicago's south side.
Thirty two people are murdered by guns every day in the United States. African-Americans represent 57 percent of the victims, despite the fact they account for only 13 percent of the overall U.S. population. Homicide is the leading cause of death for Black males aged 15-34. These lives matter.
The fast food industry is the main driver of compensation inequality in the most disparate sector of the economy, with a CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 2013 of over 1000-to-1.
Getting poor, minority children hooked on junk food is just one way the fast-food industry is getting over on us. Workers in the fast-food industry get paid among the lowest wages of any occupation. In New York, most fast-food occupations pay an average of around $9.00 an hour. This is why, as a recent study from the University of California-Berkeley reported, seven billion dollars per year are spent nationally on public assistance programs for fast-food workers.
After banning the box last year, the D.C. Council will consider a bill that would prohibit employers from checking an applicant’s credit history during most of the hiring process.
In 2015, the average student borrower is graduating with about $35,000 worth of debt. Paid over the course of 10 or more years, the cost of repayment will include several thousand dollars more to pay off the interest that accumulates on the loan.
The push for “debt-free college” began only last fall. But, politically, this meme has everything: It’s an earnest response to a genuine policy problem, the rise in student debt loads. It captures the dreams and anxieties of millennial voters and their families. And it touches on the wrenching changes underway in a vital American industry — higher ed.
Late last year, a paper from the think tank Demos outlined how more federal support for state universities could allow students, or at least those with modest part-time jobs, to graduate without debt.
Some community-college students don't get support from their families, while others had subpar high-school educations and have to play catch-up right away. In fact, a 2010 study by the public-policy organization Demos found that six out of 10 students entering community colleges have to take remedial courses to compensate for the skills and knowledge they never attained in high school.
Students have turned to loans to keep up with the price hikes. The class of 2015 has the most debt in U.S. history, with each student graduating with an average of $35,051 in loans. The national total recently reached an all-time high of $1.2 trillion.
Warren has led the charge in promoting college affordability as a major issue in the 2016 presidential race, calling for the elimination of student debt at public colleges. That debt-free college initiative, the brainchild of liberal think tank Demos, has been endorsed by Democratic contenders Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.
Nine dollars an hour, by the way, is still poverty wages. On that wage, if an employee were working 40 hours per week every week of the year they would make just under $19,000 per year -- still below poverty.