Infrastructure
The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy raises tough questions about the strength of New York City’s infrastructure, and the stability of its waterfront. Governor Cuomo’s commission on storm prevention recently issued recommendations for future damage control, which include sea barriers along...
01/15/2013
Blog
This Demos Explainer explores the tension between political support for deficit reduction versus job creation and economic security policies.
Most available research indicates a significant difference in priorities between the majority of Americans and the affluent that comprise the political donor...
12/07/2012
Publication
If there is any silver lining to the mass destruction brought by Hurricane Sandy, it might be a renewed focus on the importance of infrastructure, and just how much our current systems -- of transit, energy, buildings, and much more -- are outdated and susceptible to another disaster....
12/03/2012
Blog
Chicago’s infrastructure is in need of a major upgrade, but so are are its dwindling finances. Mayor Rahm Emanuel doesn't want to raise taxes, nor look towards Washington, D.C. or Springfield to cover the costs of repairing and upgrading the city's infrastructure. In order to do so without...
11/26/2012
Blog
Today’s prolonged economic slump is fundamentally different from an ordinary recession. In the aftermath of a severe financial collapse, an economy is at risk of succumbing to a prolonged deflationary undertow. With asset prices reduced, the financial system damaged, unemployment high, consumer...
11/26/2012
Publication
Hurricane Sandy dealt a devastating blow to transit systems in the New York metro area and revealed, once again, just how fragile and antiquated many of these systems are. Sandy also pointed up the need for New York and other coastal cities to retrofit energy systems for an era of higher seas and...
11/01/2012
Blog
The economy is plainly stuck in second gear. For the third month in a row, new job creation in June, at just 80,000, was barely enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising, and not nearly sufficient to accommodate new entrants to the labor market and unemployed people looking for work.
Not...
07/09/2012
Blog
Construction workers remain the hardest hit of all American workers, according to today's job numbers. This sector has a staggering unemployment rate of 12.8 percent, the highest of any corner of the U.S. economy. That rate is mercifully down from 15.6 percent at this time last year, but remains...
07/06/2012
Blog
The Congressional Progressive Caucus Fiscal Year 2013 budget, Budget for All, offers an important alternative to both the Obama Administration’s budget and that presented last week by Paul Ryan and the House Budget Committee. The CPC budget would accomplish several important goals at once: 1)...
03/29/2012
Publication
The concerns of municipal officials are validated by the ratings agency Moody’s, which downgraded the debt of Rockland County and Utica last month, and Yonkers and Long Beach last year. New York is hardly alone, and certainly not the worst; for four straight years, Moody’s has had a negative...
03/13/2012
News/Resource
