"The Plastic Safety Net," released Oct. 12 by policy research and advocacy groups Demos, the Center for Responsible Lending, and the AARP, reveals what's on our credit cards, why it's there, and what we're doing to manage our financial obligations.
The study found that most debt-strapped households use credit to cover unavoidable expenditures, not discretionary purchases. We're increasingly relying on plastic loans to pay our rents, mortgages, utilities, groceries, car repairs, and insurance premiums.
Washington, DC — American families are turning to credit cards to make ends meet in an increasingly volatile economy, according to The Plastic Safety Net: The Reality Behind Credit Card Debt in America, a new report released today by Demos and Center for Responsible Lending.
DEMOS, a New York-based public policy group that studies economic opportunity issues, and the Center for Responsible Lending, a Washington policy group focused on predatory lending, said low- and middle-income families fall into credit card debt to cope with income declines or unexpected costs.
According to the survey, 48 percent of respondents said they used credit cards to pay for car repairs while 38 percent reported paying for home repairs with plastic.
Washington, DC — On Wednesday, October 12, 2005 at the National Press Club in Washington DC, leading policy research and advocacy groups Demos, the Center for Responsible Lending and AARP will release findings from a new national survey of household debt in a report entitled The Plastic Safety Net: the Reality of Household Debt in America.
Eighteen- to 24-year-olds have an average $2,985 in credit card debt, according to last year's Demos USA study, "Generation Broke." The average plastic debt for 25- to 34-year-olds is $4,088.
New York, NY/Washington, DC — Today, Reps. John Conyers (D-MI) and John Lewis (D-GA), and 28 other leading members of Congress have called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to take immediate action to enforce Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). Section 7 requires that public assistance agencies, such as family assistance, Medicaid and disability services offices, offer applicants and clients the opportunity to register to vote.
Steve Carbo, of the Democracy Project, a New York-based advocacy group that pushed for broader voter registration, said Iowa did far better than many states in implementing the provision.
Voter registration among the disabled and elderly in Iowa increased eight-fold between the 2000 and 2004 elections, Secretary of State Chet Culver said Wednesday.
Des Moines, Iowa — Today, national voting rights groups ACORN, Demos, and Project Vote released a report highlighting Iowa's "best practices" for offering voter registration in human services agencies offices, as required by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The new study, A Promise Unfulfilled: Ten Years Later, finds most states noncompliant with this NVRA requirement, known as "Section 7", more than a decade after it was passed into law.
People ages 45 to 59 are the most likely to refinance, according to Demos, a nonprofit public-policy organization in New York City.
The real estate bubble will eventually burst, says Cary Silvers, vice president of New York City--based GfK NOP, a market-research company that in 2004 gathered information on boomers' attitudes toward refinancing.
When an appraiser overvalues a home that can lead to an upside down mortgage where you end up owing more than the property is worth. "This is a major problem," says David Callahan, with an advocacy group called Demos that recently looked into just how widespread the problem is.
Appraisal experts and consumer advocates alike are now sounding an alarm about a startling problem that could have you borrowing more than your home's actual value.
According to a study released in April by Demos, a public policy group in New York City, people are borrowing more than their homes are worth, and as a result, the amount of home equity has fallen from 68 percent in the early 1970s to 55 percent last year. Florida's red-hot real estate market may have a serious downside. Fraud.
Javier Silva of Demos, a New York-based think tank, yesterday opposed any change. Raising the limit would extend a dangerous trend of loosening lending standards to enable consumers to buy homes they can't truly afford, Silva said. "The answer is to find ways to lower home prices, not simply raise debt limits to allow inflated prices to soar even higher," he said.
A proposal to reduce housing costs by relaxing federal lending limits in pricey real estate markets drew a mixture of praise and sharp criticism yesterday from real estate analysts.
Demos's senior research associate and author of A House of Cards: Refinancing the American Dream, Javier Silva, said that, even in the absence of a real estate crash, many families "are facing a financial crisis," partially because they've taken on more mortgage debt.
As more and more people have rushed to be homeowners, they actually own less of their homes than they have in decades...adding another risk factor to the overheated real estate market.
But a recent report by Demos, a think tank in New York, said the refinance boom has put many homeowners at financial risk because inflated appraisals that are used to refinance homes can leave homeowners with negative equity in their properties.
As falling interest rates transformed millions of U.S. homes into virtual ATM machines, critics say the real estate appraisal system has become rife with conflicts of interest as inflated appraisals justify ever-riskier loans.
The study revealed some startling results that suggest a college education has become unaffordable to many young adults. For example, more students are taking on debt to finance their college education because of a shift in federal student aid programs. In 1980, the most common form of college funding was federal grants, which amounted to 52 percent of the government's student aid system. Loans followed at 45 percent. But by 2000, loans had risen to 58 percent of the student aid pie while grants dropped to 41 percent.
New York, NY — Today, the Building Movement Project, a national initiative to promote nonprofit organizations to work towards social change, announces the release of Up Next: Generation Change and the Leadership of Nonprofit Organizations. The report, produced in conjunction with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, with support from the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, finds that young leaders in nonprofits face critical challenges that threaten organizational sustainability and must be addressed before their Boomer counterparts retire.
Heather McGhee, economic-policy analyst with Demos said progressives value "shared prosperity."
Campus Progress, a project of billionaire George Soros's Center for American Progress (CAP), seeks to "empower a new generation of progressive leaders."
New York, NY — As the National Governor's Association convenes today in Des Moines, Iowa, the Right to Vote Campaign applauds Governors Vilsack, Warner, Guinn, Riley, and others who took action to restore voting rights for thousands of people with felony convictions.
New York, NY — As the National Association of Secretaries of State convenes today in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Right to Vote Campaign applauds Secretaries Pedro A. Cortes of Pennsylvania, Rebecca Vigil-Giron of New Mexico, and Cathy Cox of Georgia in their efforts to streamline the process for restoring voting rights to thousands of people with felony convictions by making registration information more easily accessible.
New York, NY — In the shadow of the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Foley Square, standing before the African Burial Ground Memorial Sculpture, New Yorkers representing persons with felony convictions will stand in silent protest on June 22, 2005 at 2:30 p.m. to demand the full restoration of voting rights to the formerly incarcerated.