Media

New York, NY — As health care costs continue to rise faster than incomes, families are turning to credit cards to pay for medical care, according to new research by Demos and the Access Project. The public policy groups published the findings today in a report entitled "Borrowing to Stay Healthy: How Credit Card Debt Is Related to Medical Expenses."

Senior Fellow Algernon Austin writes about the soaring cost of college tuition and the graduation rates of of low-income and minority students.

New York, NY — Today's young adults are feeling the full, deep impact of a massive shift in the US economy, and are no longer able to start and sustain a family, build a career and grow assets in the same manner as the previous generation, according to a new report series published today by Demos, a national, nonpartisan public policy center.

Boston, MA — A broad coalition of organizations that care about the quality of elections in Massachusetts issues the following call for change:

The right to vote is essential to the legitimacy of our democracy.

On November 7th, over 10 percent of precincts in Boston ran out of ballots during the peak voting time.

No voter should have to wait hours for a ballot. No voter should be denied a ballot. This failure by the City of Boston is unacceptable.

New York, NY — Homeowners have been tapping into their home equity to get the cash needed to pay down credit card debt incurred not for luxury expenses, but for basic needs. This strategy leaves them on precarious financial footing after two years of interest rate hikes and the largest drop in home prices in 35 years, according to House of Cards 2006 Update: Still Refinancing The American Dream, a report published today by Demos, a non-partisan public policy organization based in New York.

What specific changes must nonprofit groups make to meet the demands of this new era? What are the risks of ignoring these trends? Do all nonprofit leaders need to become technophiles?

Brenda Wright of the National Voting Rights Institute said many problems could be attributed to election workers who are overworked and underpaid.

"You can earn more flipping hamburgers than you can working a 14-hour day at a polling station,' she said.

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.

Among the new voting requirements recently contested in courts are state-issued photo IDs and tight restrictions on voting registration drives. Proponents of such requirements tend to be conservative white Republicans who argue that tighter rules are essential for preventing voter fraud. However, critics say such laws will unfairly impact the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and college-age students, all of whom tend to vote more for the Democrats.