December 10, 2018 is the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1948, in the aftermath of the fall of the Nazi regime, the United States joined many countries in the world and signed the Declaration. Several of the rights listed in the document were already within the U.S. Constitution, but some were not. We have done particularly poorly in living up to the Declaration’s call for a right to an adequate standard of living, including food, housing, and medical care.
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.
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.
In the past 15 years the ramifications of poor credit have grown, as credit score "mission creep" has set in, said Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst with the New York-based think tank Demos and author of the recently released report "Discrediting America." Credit scores determine not just the interest rates paid on material goods, such as a cell phone or car, but also the pricing of utilities and insurance. Approximately 60 percent of employers use credit reports to screen job applicants.
“The middle class is not on the same solid footing that it once was,” said Jennifer Wheary, who cowrote a study on the recession’s impact on middle-class African Americans and Latinos with Brandeis University and the New York think tank Demos.
Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at watchdog group Demos, says that credit-based insurance scores hurt lower-income people more because they are more likely to have lower scores. She noted a study that showed while those with lower scores made more claims because they couldn't swallow the costs, the cost of those claims were not necessarily greater.
In its bombshell of a report “Discrediting America,” the nonpartisan public policy research group Demos sums up the problem for black and Latinos:
Credit reports largely mirror racial and economic divides, with African Americans and Latinos disproportionately likely to have lower scores. In turn, these communities are more likely to be offered high-priced loan products, which may contribute to more defaults, maintaining and amplifying historical injustice.
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Senior Fellow Wallace C. Turbeville, a beloved member of the Demos family since 2012. Wallace “Wally” Turbeville was among our country’s most respected and influential thought leaders and advocates for systemic financial reform as a core fight in the struggle for economic and racial justice.
Doing “everything right” — making all the optimal life choices to build wealth and get ahead, despite obstacles — is still not enough for black and Latino households to accumulate as much wealth as their white counterparts.
With so many eventual graduates starting at community colleges, we should take a hard look at institutional aid policies, which reward incoming freshmen much more than transfer students.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus has released its People’s Budget, which it aptly subtitles a “roadmap to resistance.” The CPC budget is proactive, pro-public, and progressive. In decided contrast to the dystopian vision of the Trump budget, the CPC budget presents a bold vision rooted in the fundamental value that our nation is a shared project of all its people – the demos – for the benefit of the entire demos.
Despite important advances with ballot initiatives and the rise of the powerful Fight for $15 movement, there is still progress to be made on raising the minimum wage.
Today progressive Democrats released a framework for job creation and infrastructure investment that will prepare the United States to thrive in the 21st century.
