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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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Cover of 'Solving the Affordability Crisis' by People's Action and Dēmos: a rising staircase of icons representing groceries, health care, energy, housing, and child care, each topped with dollar bills."

Solving the Affordability Crisis

The affordability crisis is the result of policy choices — and different choices can reverse it. This report from Dēmos and People's Action traces why housing, utilities, food, health care, and child care have become unaffordable, and five structural solutions for building a people-powered, racially just economy.

Policy Briefs
Demos
People's Action
A Black care worker in scrubs reviews a clipboard with an older Black woman seated on a couch. In the background, composite images show caregivers working with children and supporting elderly adults, overlaid with illustrated icons representing justice, economic opportunity, and care.

Empowering Care Workers: The Key to a Better Care Economy

Good care jobs are the foundation of a good care economy. Empowering care workers through better pay, stronger protections, and collective voice would improve care quality, reduce workforce shortages, and advance racial and economic equity.

Policy Briefs
Nick Wertsch
Row of empty voting booths in a school gym

Missing Voters: The Real Threat to Alabama's Democracy

More than 815,000 Alabamians are missing from the electoral process. In this report, Stand Up Mobile, Dēmos, and Southern Coalition for Social Justice examine who's missing, why, and what Alabama must do to fix it.

Research
Beverly Cooper
Dustin Tyler Broughton
Keshia Morris Desir
Jens Manuel Krogstad
Lucy Krueger
Sarah Ovaska

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

Inequality's Impact on the Economy

A breakdown of the public policies needed to ensure that all Americans have a chance to move into the middle class and stay there.

Testimony and Public Comment
Heather C. McGhee

Memorandum on New York City Employment Credit Checks

From: Demos To: Mayor Bill de Blasio; City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito; and interested parties Regarding: Unjustified exemptions that weaken and Aundermine legislation on employment credit checks 
Testimony and Public Comment