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Forty eight years ago today President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law what would become the most effective civil rights provision in the history of the country: the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

Back in June, that law was rolled back by a conservative Supreme Court majority who argued that the country had moved beyond discrimination in the voting process. This despite an election year rife with states introducing voter suppression legislation, which continues unabated, most recently in North Carolina.  

Democracy North Carolina put together a one-page report that summarizes HB-589, the bill the General Assembly passed in late July despite the mass demonstrations outside the capitol that came to be known as Moral Mondays.

A new report from NonProfit VOTE shows the incredible impact non-profit service providers can have on voter registration and turnout. Under a program called Track the Vote, Nonprofit VOTE tracked 33,741 individuals who had registered to vote or signed a pledge to vote at 94 nonprofit service providers.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has, ironically, found that exploiting children turns a profit. It has been doing so since its creation in 1984 under Ronald Reagan, who created the quasi-governmental agency. It enjoys liberal funding from the Department of Justice and a level of privacy other non-profits don’t have.

The horrifying subject of missing children often obscures questions of budget allocation, employee compensation, and the accuracy of statements the organization releases.

Low wage workers and their advocates have been pushing for a paid sick leave bill for almost eight years in Massachusetts, where it’s still legal for an employer to fire workers for taking time off due to sickness or injury. The latest bill, introduced by Democratic State Senator Dan Wolf was presented to the senate’s Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development in January, where it’s been stuck ever since.

It's not so depressing if you think of it as 200,000 fewer purchases from The Dollar Tree over the course of forever. Currently, the average student debt balance for a household headed by two college graduates is $53,000, and according to a new study by research organization Demos, those households could end up $208,000 poorer over the course of a lifetime than a household with zero student debt.

The real cost of student loan debt is far greater than you may think, according to a new analysis.

A household with $53,000 in outstanding student debt -- which is the average college loan balance for a family headed by two people with 4-year degrees -- will be about $208,000 poorer over a lifetime than a similar household with no debt, a study released Thursday by public policy research organization Demos found.

Business is booming. Employers are hiring. Job growth is soaring. Profits are near record levels. All true, at least in the retail and restaurant industries. New jobs numbers released Friday show that 47,000 jobs were added in retail in July, and 38,000 jobs were added in food and drinking places. These jobs account for over half of the 162,000 jobs added in July.