Media

Like all of us at Demos, I read the news of the murder of two NYPD officers and the attempted murder of a Baltimore woman with a feeling of horror. In a society so riddled with violence, access to guns and mental illness collide all too often in America, and in fact, every day a woman is attacked by a partner or estranged partner. When violence like this is prevented and assailants are apprehended, police officers get to be the heroes—but this weekend, two officers became victims.

This week, workers gathered on the steps of New York’s City Hall, singing carols to raise awareness about the problem of employment credit checks.

Does America’s skepticism of the legal system begin and end with a podcast?

Walmart is under scrutiny after claims that their political action committee is using illegal methods to persuade employees to donate to its PAC. 

Americans are ending 2014 with a binge — on credit-card debt.

The year that began with a flood of red ink is now seeing credit-card and other debt spiking higher as it comes to an end.

Consumers have continued pulling out the plastic this year, with a nearly $16 billion increase in debt in the third quarter. [...]

In a speech on the Senate floor on Saturday, Senator Elizabeth Warren called out to the toxic connection between money in politics and financial crisis. Demos' report Stacked Deck found similarly: a rising tide of big money has tilted economic policymaking in favor of the elite.

A government shutdown once again loomed, and familiar deadlines and ultimatums flew around Washington. And Congress just used the threat to loosen the rules created in the wake of the financial crisis, a victory for Wall Street banks in their constant and well-funded campaign against reform.

The rules they have targeted are designed to reduce the risk of another financial meltdown, like the one that drove us into the Great Recession and could have been much worse. Though the repeal has been styled by some as a technical amendment, nothing could be farther from the truth.

As turmoil surrounds a potential shutdown around provisions to roll back critical parts of Dodd-Frank, there's new evidence that Wall Street holds more influence than ever in Washington.

(New York, NY) – On the heels of the nation’s most expensive mid-term election cycle, where federal political spending hit a $3.7 billion high, the national public policy organization Demos released a new report that examines the inherent racial bias in our big money political system.