Having to register to vote is a practical barrier for some people, especially those who are poor and marginalized. So shifting that burden to the state leads to more people voting.
Voting matters. Though many Americans believe that voting is either useless or merely a civic duty, in reality it carries huge consequences for the decisions of politicians.
North Carolina’s recent voting law changes will disproportionately affect black voters in the state, according to a study published Wednesday by Dartmouth University.
“The study provides powerful ammunition for the pending legal challenges,” says Brenda Wright, a voting rights expert with the liberal think tank Demos. “It shows that virtually every key feature of North Carolina’s election legislation will disproportionately cut back on registration and voting by African Americans in North Carolina as compared to whites.”
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The debt-free college initiative is based on a plan sketched out by liberal think tank Demos. It calls for the federal government to award grants to states that increase spending on higher education and increase need-based grant aid.
The fact that student debt continues to soar is troubling enough. Now there is clear evidence that it also deepens the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
One effect of the ruling is that it’ll now be easier to sue an employer over an expensive 401(k) plan, turning up the legal pressure a notch.
Those expenses matter. A 2012 study by Demos, a New York City-based think tank, found that over a lifetime, 401(k) fees cost a two-earner family with a median income nearly $155,000 — and consume nearly one-third of their investment returns.
Citizens United just added fuel to an already blazing fire—and returning to the “glory days” before the decision will not create an America where we all have an equal say over the government decisions that affect our lives.
Student debt can weigh you down long into adulthood, and might make you less likely to ever be able to retire.
That's according to a new analysis from Demos, a progressive think tank.
This chart shows the clear benefit of getting a college degree. Households with some college but no degree are unlikely to own a home, while homeownership is the norm for households headed by someone who finished college.
A separate report this week by the left-leaning think tank Demos suggests that black students may also be disproportionately impacted by such policies.
(New York, NY)- During the next few weeks thousands of students across the country will graduate from college, an accomplishment that used to symbolize a step toward financial independence and entry into the middle class.
The nation’s yawning wealth gap is a major reason why minority students end up borrowing more for college. Structural racism has created disparities in home ownership rates, income and other wealth-building vehicles, providing minority borrowers with fewer resources to tap to pay for college, on average.
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson vowed that no student wishing to attend college would "be turned away because his family is poor."
Half a century later, a shift in the way college is funded and the declining fortunes of minorities and poor families since the recession have created a college-debt system that the left-leaning think tank Demos calls "deeply biased along class and racial lines."
Because college is increasingly financed by debt taken on by students, it's creating a system that's impacting differen
Most students go into debt to pay for college. And while no one wants to be in the red, a new report from left-leaning think tank Demos argues that the increasingly debt-financed higher education system in the United States is especially harmful to low-income, black and Latino kids.
Demos, the New York-based group, began monitoring North Carolina about a decade ago because it spotted a drop-off in public assistance registrations. Gary Bartlett, the State Board of Elections director at the time, was eager to attract more voters, said Stuart Naifeh, an attorney with Demos.
“He was as dismayed as we were about the low rates,” Naifeh said. “He wanted to work with us to improve that.”
This is not the first time North Carolina has fallen out of compliance with the NVRA. Dēmos, the New York-based group that has put North Carolina on notice, also monitored the state about 10 years ago after seeing a drop in voter registration applications processed by public assistance agencies. Gary Bartlett, the State Board of Elections director at the time, worked closely with Dēmos to get the state back into compliance.
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Given growing levels of student debt combined with stagnant incomes over the past few decades, “something has to give somewhere,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank.
Black culture and the role racism plays in black American history are discussed at length in the national dialogue around race relations. We regularly debate use of the “n-word,” for example, and the impact of historical racism on outcomes for black Americans.
After the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, many pointed at the gap between the black population and their overwhelmingly white elected officials as a symptom of the country’s problem with race.