The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Ohio could continue to use an aggressive process for removing people from its voting rolls, saying the procedure did not run afoul of federal voter protections.
“If states take today’s decision as a sign that they can be even more reckless and kick eligible voters off the rolls, we will fight back in the courts, the legislatures and with our community partners across the country,” Demos attorney Stuart Naifeh said.
On the same day California’s primary election produced decidedly mixed results last week — encouraging for Democrats, less so for progressives — progressive advocates gathered in Los Angeles learned about how politics in California (and nationwide) could be dramatically transformed by driving a stake through the heart of coded, dog-whistle racism, and by confronting it head-on with a call for cross-racial unity to create a better shared future.
Today, for the first time, a federal court told a state that its planned use of the controversial Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck System (“Crosscheck”) to purge registered voters likely violates federal law.
Demos’ Race-Class Narrative (RCN) project developed an empirically-tested narrative on race and class that resonates with all working people and offers an alternative to—and neutralizes the use of—dog-whistle racism.
Millions of eligible voters remain unregistered. To fulfill the promise of the NVRA, states must do much more to ensure all Americans have a voice in our democracy.
The ability of college graduates to pay student loans isn’t simply a matter of earnings. It also reflects wealth — and differences that persist in wealth among racial and ethnic groups.
In the midst of a Twitter feed alight with stories about police being used to shut black people out of places to eat, drink, exercise, and relax, comes a story about Trump’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) using policy to do the same. The federal government is adding new and significant hurdles to communities of color — particularly black people — being able to access housing.
According to the New York Times, full-time employees in retail generally make less than $33,000 a year. The same article states that “42 percent of retail workers earn a low hourly wage — defined as less than two-thirds of the median wage across the economy.”
Accumulating student loan debt has become a typical part of higher education for students. As of March 2018, nearly 44 million Americans owed over $1.48 trillion in student loan debt, a number expected to grow as tuition rates outpace inflation and wage growth. Few people experience the hardships of student loan debt more than students of color. Approximately 77.7% of all black students use federal student loans to pay for their education. That group also has the highest loan default rates and lowest graduation rates among college students.
Rather than excluding students, progressive states like New Jersey have an opportunity to lead and expand the universe of the possible on issues like free college.
In Everyone’s America: State Policies for an Equal Say in Our Democracy and an Equal Chance in Our Economy, Demos lays out race-forward economic and pro-democracy policy agendas, centering the working class and people of color.
Six years ago today, on April 25, 2012, activists took to the streets to mark the country’s outstanding student-loan debt surpassing $1 trillion. And in the years since, many of the trends that pushed student debt levels to climb have persisted and in some cases gotten worse.