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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

Become an Original Cosponsor of The Equal Employment for All Act

On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the undersigned organizations, we urge you to become an original cosponsor of “The Equal Employment for All Act” sponsored by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). In addition to the weak economy, job-seekers today confront another less
Testimony and Public Comment

The Detroit Bankruptcy

The causes of Detroit's bankruptcy and what the city's emergency manager can do to turn it around.

Research
Wallace C. Turbeville

A Higher Wage Is Possible

How Walmart Can Invest in Its Workforce Without Costing Customers a Dime

Research
Catherine Ruetschlin
Amy Traub

How the Supreme Court Helped Create the Inequality Era and Why a New Jurisprudence Must Lead Us Out

In August 2011, Congress passed a strange piece of legislation intended to bind itself into the future. In spite of persistently high unemployment and an unremarkable deficit-to-GDP ratio, and in spite of public polling that consistently showed that creating jobs was  the American public’s top

Research
Adam Lioz
Seton Hall Law Review

Building a Healthy Democracy

 

Research

Running in Place: Where The Middle Class and The Poor Meet

Millions are working hard to move forward, or just to make ends meet, and getting nowhere. This policy agenda can change that reality.

Research
Miles Rapoport
Jennifer Wheary

Agrarian Collectivities: Cooperative Approaches to Empowering Women and the Poor

* This essay is adapted from a lecture delivered on the occasion of the award of the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa to Bina Agarwal at the Lustrum Ceremony of the 55th Anniversary of the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands, October 18, 2007.
Research

The Psychology of Economic Ideology: Emotion, Motivation, and Moral Intuition

INTRODUCTION: GOING DEEPER THAN STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION A popular recent meme on liberal social networks and left-leaning blogs summarizes ideological differences as follows:     While the partisan message is clear (only with liberalism's compassionate box-stacking does everyone get to
Research
Ravi Iyer
Peter Meindl

America the Unequal: Origins and Impacts of a Policy Revolution

INTRODUCTION In the three decades after the Second World War, low- and middle-income households enjoyed income gains that grew in tandem with rising GDP levels and actually outpaced the gains enjoyed by the richest households. In short, if you wanted to report how “the U.S. economy was doing” or
Research

McCutcheon Money: The Projected Impact of Striking Aggregate Contribution Limits

Elizabeth Ridlington and Miles Unterreiner of Frontier Group, Robert Hiltonsmith of Demos, and Kurt Walters of Public Campaign helped with data analysis for this report.
Policy Briefs
Adam Lioz (Demos)
Blair Bowie (US PIRG)