“If you’re out of work for a long time, you have difficulty paying your bills,” says Amy Traub, coauthor of a June report from the think tank Demos that calls for reform of the credit reporting industry. “If potential employers are looking at credit scores, how on earth are you going to pay your bills then?”
What’s more, the credit bureaus themselves acknowledge there is no proof of a link between a person’s credit report and their suitability as an employee.
"College graduates are less likely to get a job," said Anna Pycior, a spokeswoman for Demos. "If you do manage to get a job, it is getting less and less likely you will be provided with health benefits and you will face the increasingly bleak prospect of a retirement plan.
"All of it while trying to address your $27,000 on average in student debt."
Insurers justify the use of credit screening for insurance purposes by pointing to internal industry data showing that, on average, people with lower scores are more likely to make an insurance claim. The problem is, they don’t have a convincing explanation for why people with poor credit tend to make more claims.
Today, six in ten employers say that they check the credit histories of some or all prospective employees before making final hiring decisions. This traps many jobseekers in a devastating catch-22.
7) Unions are one of the few institutional bulwarks against a corporate dictatorship over all of us: I mentioned their role in the ballot initiative and electoral process, but how are people organized in society? Into factories and electronics assembly shops and big-box stores. They wake up in the morning and - even with strong unions - much of their life is dominated by the company: what time to show up, what time to break (and do we get one?), how fast to work.
A study released by Demos, a research and advocacy organization, may shed light on why some working families have credit card debt and others don't.
The study, "Understanding the Debt Difference," is based on survey research of 2,248 low- and middle-income adults between April 2008 and August 2008, and contrasts the demographics, financial habits and economic circumstances of those with credit card debt and those without it.
The bottom half of American households now controls less than 5 percent of our total net worth. Our republican founders could not have imagined a distribution of wealth so concentrated, nor a democracy so threatened by the rule of property.
Today's 20-somethings are likely to be the first generation to not be better off than their parents." This is the first line of Economic State of Young America, a report released by Demos, a nonpartisan public policy think tank in New York City. And that's a troubling thesis for a generation that grew up being told they can do and be anything.
As President Obama takes office, and the nation reflects on the historic moment and its significance, Demos Senior Fellows John Schwarz and Lew Daly remind us that America is more than just “common blood, or race, or ethnic background or religion.” America is about freedom, they argue, and its up to government to help establish the conditions for economic independence that have become central to the ideals of American freedom.
Senior Fellow Algernon Austin and Jared Bernstein discuss how the "bad culture" arguments about African-Americans are misguided at best and destructive at worst. By creating an erroneous causal link between "bad culture" and black poverty, the "Cosby consensus" prevents the country from recognizing success and building on it to create the economic opportunities that are missing for too many African-Americans.
Robert Frank, an economist at Cornell University, for instance, found that in counties with the widest income gaps, rates of personal bankruptcy and divorce rates were higher than average.
Draut argues that "with the possible exception of having a larger array of entertainment and other goods to purchase, members of Generation X appear to be worse off by every measure" than prior generations.
According to the advocacy group Demos, the average balance among lower- and middle-income households is $8,650.
"World News Tonight's" special series "Credit Crunch" aims to help you get on the road to becoming debt free.
A fraudulent appraisal "can lead homeowners to borrow more money than their homes are worth, putting themselves at risk of being 'upside down' in a home -- e.g. not being able to sell for a high enough price to pay off their mortgage," according to a briefing paper on appraisal fraud put out by Demos, a New York-based think tank.
Americans owe $800 billion in credit card debt, more than triple the amount from 1989, and a 31 percent increase from five years ago, according to a recent report, "The Plastic Safety Net," by the Center for Responsible Lending, and Demos, a research group based in New York.
The study found that a third of low- and middle-income American households used credit cards for basic expenses - rent, groceries and utilities - in any 4 of the last 12 months.
Those with the worst credit card debt were people ages 50 to 64, who owed $9,124
A major survey released by the think tank Demos provides some important new insights on how average American families are using credit cards.
The implication is hard to escape: many middle- and low-income American families are using consumer credit as a way to weather fluctuations in their finances.