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From cutting-edge policy research to illuminating analysis, we bring a racial equity lens to the most pressing issues facing our country. For our latest blog posts and media updates, visit our Media page.

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A family smiling at each other in the foreground with a row of houses in the background and a bar chart behind them showing the racial wealth gap with white households
Policy Briefs
Demos
New Economy Project

Public Banks for Racial Equity

How stark racial disparities have long pervaded our financial services system, fueling and entrenching inequality, and why public banks are a transformative, equitable alternative.

Letter to Mayor de Blasio and Members of the City Council: Enact The Stop Credit Discrimination in Employment Act

Dear Mayor de Blasio and Members of the City Council: As leaders in New York City who are concerned about economic and racial injustice, we call on you to enact Intro. 261, The Stop Credit Discrimination in Employment Act, and to ensure that this legislation does not include unjustified
Testimony and Public Comment

Letter to FEC Assistant General Counsel Amy Rothstein, Re: REG 2014-01: Proposed Rulemaking in Response to McCutcheon v. FEC

Demos is a national, non-partisan public policy organization working for an America where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy. Demos’ lawyers, researchers, and advocates have extensive legal and policy expertise on money in politics. These comments are
Testimony and Public Comment
Liz Kennedy
Seth Endo

The Money Chase: Moving from Big Money Dominance in the 2014 Midterms to a Small Donor Democracy

Five years after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision, what are the roles of large donors and average voters in selecting and supporting candidates for Congress?

Research
Adam Lioz
Karen Shanton

Retail Politics

How America’s Big-Box Retailers Turn Their Economic Power into Political Influence

Research
Catherine Ruetschlin
Sean McElwee

The Dominance of Big Money in the 2014 Congressional Elections

Democracy has at its heart a basic promise: citizens have an equal voice in deciding who represents them.

Research
Adam Lioz

The Problem of African American Underrepresentation in City Councils

More than 1.2 million African Americans in 175 communities across the country have councils that do not descriptively represent them

Research
Karen Shanton

Credit Card Debt in the Latino Community

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, Americans battered by job loss, foreclosure, and plummeting home values tightened their belts and paid down debt. The Latino community, hit particularly hard by the housing crash, was no exception. Yet new research from Demos’ National Survey on Credit Card
Research
Amy Traub
NCLR

Why the Voting Gap Matters

If we do not close voter turnout gaps, our democracy is destined to become less and less representative in the coming decades.

Research
Sean McElwee

Connecticut’s Great Cost Shift

Connecticut’s investment in higher education has decreased considerably over the past two decades, and its financial aid programs, though still some of the country’s most expansive, fail to reach many students with financial need.

Research
Mark Huelsman
Robert Hiltonsmith

Morality and the Market: Values, Ethics and the Need for a New Social Contract

Americans are famously concerned about values and personal morality. The United States ranks among the most religious of all the advanced industrialized democracies, and it has frequently experienced eras of intense moral introspection. The past several decades have been such a period, with heated
Research