It’s well known that graduating college students in recent years have faced student loan debt at unprecedented levels far exceeding that of previous generations of American graduates. Nonetheless, a new report released by the New York-based Demos public policy organization documents the patterns of debt along racial and class lines with Black, Latino, and low-income students taking out higher loans than Whites and more likely to drop out with significant debt.
A new study shows that black and Latino retail workers not only earn less than their white counterparts, but they're also less likely to be promoted or given full-time roles, the Associated Press reports.
The study, conducted by the NAACP and public policy organization Demos, found that in major positions held by retail workers — cashiers, salespeople, and first-line managers — black employees are paid the least, followed by Latinos.
On average, black cashiers are paid $9.17 per hour, with salespeople averaging
The overall unemployment rate is 5.5%, and the rate for African Americans and Latinos is still higher than the rate for whites, coming in at 10.2% and 6.7% respectively. The unemployment rate for whites is currently 4.7%.
The rising cost of attending college has had a serious impact on the finances of most students and their families, but the burden has been distributed unequally.
More than 1.9 million Black Americans work in retail, accounting for 11 percent of the industry’s total workforce. Despite being the second-largest source of employment for Black workers, new data from the NAACP and equality advocacy organization, Demos, finds that the industry is rife with racial inequality and poor earning potential.
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.
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
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.
The missing link in the inequality debate is not financial stability, but financial domination of the broader economy, what has come to be called “financialization.” Financialization, as a new Demos report demonstrates, is not only measurable by risk and volatility or by the mere expanding volume of financial activities; rather, it should also be measured by how the non-financial economy—the economy of jobs and wages, production and enterprise growth—is increasingly dist
Chanting "$15.00 and a union," thousands of federal contract workers walked off their jobs yesterday, led by the Senate's cafeteria workers who serve Senators their food. They were joined by Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, led by Keith Ellison (D-Minn) and Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz). Sanders announced they were introducing legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15.00 an hour.
The implications of a state labor board's July 22 decision to raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $15 an hour from $8.75 are clear: Other industries with low-wage workers could find themselves facing a similar pay hike soon.
Next up is likely the retail industry, followed by home care, child care and even adjunct professors, said Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a liberal think tank.
"The patchwork of wage hikes by locality and industry, as well as the falling unemployme
But it is the recent, explosive growth of Uber and other "sharing economy" companies that have attracted the most concern.
HomeJoy recently announced it would shut down in the face of four lawsuits alleging it should treat the people who clean homes on its behalf as employees rather than as independent contractors not entitled to the same workplace protections.
"If a technologist wants to disrupt an industry that has middle-class jobs and replace them with insecure, not-as-good jobs, there has to be a conversation about that,"
The image chosen also appears to be deliberately misleading,Robbie Hiltonsmith, senior policy analyst for left-leaning think tank Demos, told Mic via email.
Consumer advocacy groups have long complained that there is no link between bad credit and job performance. They argue that such checks lead to discriminatory hiring.
Demos applauds the work of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) who today introduced The Equal Employment for All Act, legislation that would prohibit the widespread use of pe