The last presidential debate not only continued the silence on climate change, it also advanced the false narrative that we have to choose between economic growth and action on climate change. While the candidates focused on how to keep gas prices down, increase energy independence, and create jobs, they never addressed how we can use our energy plan to fight climate change. By refusing to address climate consequences, both candidates reinforce the idea that we either focus on economic growth or we focus on the environment, but not both.
When it comes to climate change, there is one area in which the U.S. leads all other nations. Our media gives more time and attention to climate deniers than any other country. The study looked at five other countries besides the U.S.- Brazil, China, France, India and the UK- to see how leading newspapers in each country dealt with climate skepticism. It found that coverage of climate skepticism is mostly limited to the U.S. and to the U.K.
NEW YORK - As the Supreme Court hears oral argument in Fisher v. University of Texas case challenging the constitutionality of the school’s undergraduate admissions program on Wednesday, October 10, Demos stands with the United States Student Association (USSA) along with hundreds of other community, corporate, military and civil rights leaders, students and other allies in support of diversity in higher education.
In politics, there inevitably comes the dreaded time when politics and politicking run into reality. It is the point at which you can no longer appease two opposing parties and a decision must be made that chooses one party's interests over the other. I imagine politicians hate this moment because it shows their true character, for better or worse.
A new study finds that climate change is already contributing to 400,000 deaths per year and costing the world more than $1.2 trillion, or 1.6 percent of global GDP. The report was commissioned by 20 governments and written by more than 50 scientists, economists and policy experts. In the report, the authors detail how the vast majority of deaths occur in developing countries and that the world’s poorest communities within lower and middle-income communities are most exposed to climate change risks.
A study by Demos, a liberal research center, found that a median-income couple that invested in 401(k)’s for 40 years with fees averaging 1.6 percent a year would achieve $354,850 in assets at average savings rates, but only after paying $154,794 in investment fees.
A new fact sheet from Demos, College on a Credit Card, investigates the relationship between educational expenses and credit card debt, and shows that putting college on credit can be a very bad deal.
Demos conducted a nationwide survey of low- and middle-income households in early 2012. The findings in this brief summarize the relationship between college costs and credit card debt, and its impact on students and their parents.
A new report from the New York Fed suggests that even while the rest of household debt improved since March, driven by decreasing credit card and housing debt, student loans have worsened.
Many Florida families have been paying up to 25 percent of median income for public in-state college costs — out of reach for some middle-class parents who have taken recent pay cuts or lost jobs, according to a new study.
In a speech at the University of Kansas in February of the tumultuous year 1968, Robert F. Kennedy spoke of the plight of the poorest Americans, those struggling in devastated rural areas, and on Indian reservations and in the tenements and housing projects of the inner cities. He was blunt. “We must begin,” he said, “to end this disgrace of the other America.”
Despite some rain showers, over 60 percent of the country is still suffering from drought conditions and nearly a quarter is suffering from extreme or exceptional drought. We’ve detailed how this has impacted agriculture and ranching and over 60 percent of Iowa’s land is still classified as being in either extreme or exceptional drought.
MIAMI – In just three years Florida’s higher education funding per student decreased 40 percent, according to a new report by national public policy center Demos and the Florida-based Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy (RISEP). As a direct result, Floridian families now spend 25% of median income on the cost of a single year of attendance at a public four-year college. The situation is only looking grimmer, with the recent $300 million cut to public four-year universities.
Some eight years ago, I was at a presentation by Vanguard founder Jack Bogle at a business journalists' conference in Denver, and when his PowerPoint crashed, and he had to use transparencies on a vintage 20th-century overheard projector. After the presentation, he let me keep them, and they still serve as a sort of Rosetta Stone for me for enlightened investing.
Investors who were paying attention got a cold slap of reality this spring when the progressive think tank Demos released a study showing that the median household could expect to pay more than $150,000 in 401(k) fees over the course of a working lifetime, or about a third of potential investment returns. What's more, about two-thirds of 401(k) investors had no idea that they were paying such fees.
Washington, DC - The United States Student Association (“USSA”), the nation’s oldest and largest student-run, student-led organization, yesterday filed a brief amicus curiae supporting the constitutionality of the University of Texas’ undergraduate admissions program, which is being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court in Fisher v. University of Texas, No. 11-345. USSA is comprised of more than four million students with diverse backgrounds who are currently enrolled in American colleges and universities.
It seems there is little real relief on the horizon.
“If you’re coming out of college with an average number of $20,000 to $25,000 in debt and there’s no job out there, you’ve got a real problem,” said John Quinterno, a researcher who has studied the consequences of student debt.