Demos' Public Works Senior Program Director, Michael Lipsky and Demos Fellow Nicole Kazee argue that small business interests have been hijacked by powerful interest groups that do not full represent the views or interests of small-business owners. So then, who speaks for small business?
Fifteen years after NVRA passed Congress, many states are still ignoring their duty to low-income voters. Recent research and field and field investigations have indicated that states throughout the country are neglecting their responsibility to offer voter registration at public assistance offices.
Demos Legal Director Brenda Wright helps examine how high limits on individual campaign contributions disproportionately benefit the incumbent in an election.
"...a terrific new book on our dysfunctional health care system..."
-Paul Krugman, "The New York Times"
Recently named a finalist for Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Award and World Hunger Year Harry Chapin Media Award
Voters ranging in age from roughly the late teens to the early 30s, are part of the so-called millennial generation. This is a generation that is in danger of being left out of the American dream — the first American generation to do less well economically than their parents.
Demos and The Center for American Progress Publish New Studies
Washington, DC — Today's young adults are feeling the impact of a massive shift in the U.S. economy — changes that are documented in a new data report from Demos and an analysis of public opinion polling by The Center for American Progress. The studies were announced today with a press teleconference.
Not only is money tight with food and gas prices rising, but credit is tougher to come by and homes are no longer available as an ATM. At the same time, the spread of eco-consciousness into mainstream culture is shining a spotlight on waste and prompting many consumers to reconsider how they shop.
Field investigators who interviewed people leaving state social service offices in the last year in Jackson, Clay and St. Louis counties and St. Louis city said almost none of those people were asked if they wanted to register, according to Scott Novakowski, a senior policy analyst for Demos, one of four national advocacy groups representing the plaintiffs. Three of the sites visited did not have voter registration applications available, he said.
Leading National Advocacy Organizations File Suit to Enforce Federal National Voter Registration Act
Kansas City, MO — The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and St. Louis resident Dionne O'Neal have filed a federal lawsuit today charging that the state of Missouri has failed to provide voter registration services to clients of state public assistance agencies, as required by the federal National Voter Registration Act ("NVRA"). The NVRA is a federal law enacted in 1993 to ensure all Americans have access to voter registration services.
[State Rep. Lois DeBerry] is sponsoring a bill that would prohibit credit issuers from recruiting students on campus or from offering gifts to students on campus to entice them into applying for a credit card, usually at major athletic events. So far, she's having trouble getting the bill through the Legislature.
According to a Demos calculation based on the Survey of Consumer Finances, a higher proportion of women ages 25 to 34 carry credit card debt compared with their male peers-76 percent vs. 67 percent-but the men carry higher amounts of debt, which is what really matters when you're trying to stay on top of monthly bills.
Lisa J. Danetz of Demos, a nonpartisan public policy center focused on expanding democratic participation, affirmed Slater's testimony that registration is not being offered at public agencies in many states.
"In this important and insightful book, Michael Edwards lays bare the mythologies surrounding philanthropy and shows it to be exactly what it is — an essential part of our capitalist system, with all the flaws and foibles found elsewhere — good at what it does best but bad at what it's sometimes expected to do. Anyone who wants the truth of philanthropy in America should read this book."
-- Robert B. Reich, Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley
The authors of "Up to Our Eyeballs: How Shady Lenders and Failed Economic Policies are Drowning Americans in Debt" blame the rising costs of health care, higher education and housing for making "debt the only mechanism available to many Americans for coping with a job loss or a medical emergency or even everyday needs like car repairs and groceries."