Media

Pittsburgh-The newly released national June jobs report showed 200,000 people joined the unemployment lines last month. In Pennsylvania, where the annual unemployment rate is the highest it has been in nearly three decades and state tuition/student debt is on the rise, the state's low- and middle-income families are in danger of disappearing.

A new report, "Under Attack: Pennsylvania's Middle Class and the Job Crisis," outlines these growing challenges facing millions of Pennsylvanians.

“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.

"College graduates are less likely to get a job," said Anna Pycior, a spokeswoman for Demos. "If you do manage to get a job, it is getting less and less likely you will be provided with health benefits and you will face the increasingly bleak prospect of a retirement plan.

"All of it while trying to address your $27,000 on average in student debt."

New York-A newly released review of a June 27 report by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) shows that voter registration application rates at state public assistance agencies have risen sharply following National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) enforcement actions by advocacy groups Demos, Project Vote, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and others. In contrast, the overwhelming majority of states not targeted have continued to see a long decline in registration of lower-income residents.

For Immediate Release
July 13, 2011

Alex Amend, [email protected], 212.389.1411
Anna Pycior, [email protected], 914.330.1103

House Members To Call on DOJ to Investigate Voter ID Measures in States; Voting Rights Group Applauds Effort
7/13 Press Conference Hosted by Rep. Fudge to Discuss

For Immediate Release

July 13, 2011

Contact & RSVP: 

After last week -- when JP Morgan Chase settled charges by the SEC that it engaged in rigged bidding -- its CEO Jamie Dimon has even more explaining to do.

Conservatives are a house divided these days on many issues. But on the core issue likely to determine the 2012 election, the economy, there’s not a millimeter of space between them. Government is the problem and reducing the burdens of taxes and regulation on America’s job creators stands at the top of nearly every Republican presidential candidate’s agenda. That’s the only way to get the economy humming again, fuel new job creation, and bring unemployment down, they contend.