All in, 401(k) fees can range from 50 basis points up to 3 percent, said David Walters, a CPA and certified financial planner with Palisades Hudson Financial Group. Any plan charging more than 1 percent, Walters insisted, should be seen as suspect.
"Taken over an employee's lifetime, that can make a huge difference in what [workers] get to spend in retirement," Walters said.
Fees can take a bite out of your retirement income, so it's important to be aware of what advisory or fund management fees you might be paying. Fees for a median-income two-earner family can eat up almost one-third of their investment returns over a lifetime, according to Demos, a think tank. Reining wrote on his blog that he invested in index funds, which typically have lower fee structures than actively managed funds, and individual stocks.
Robert Hiltonsmith, senior policy analyst at Demos, a progressive think tank, expects the positive trends to continue -- even if Tuesday’s survey suggests employers overall aren’t relenting on tough and irregular scheduling demands. “I think it’s a slow burn, but the pressure’s mounting,” he says.
Either way, the drawdown is a worry in the huge US retirement industry, which managed total assets of $24.8 trillion as of June 30. Massive withdrawals will crimp the lucrative fee income for administrators. And another concern is market performance, with fewer US buyers and sellers available to potentially prop up assets.
Bill Clinton's interview provoked Wallace Turbeville, a former lawyer and investment banker turned financial reform advocate, to contradict him.
"His statement is flat wrong," Turbeville wrote in a blog post for the liberal think tank Demos. "The Graham-Leach-Bliley Act that President Clinton signed had everything to do with the crisis."
Those orders represent a victory for unions, particularly the labor federation Change to Win, which has been organizing workers at federally contracted businesses through the campaign Good Jobs Nation. Low-wage workers affiliated with Good Jobs Nation — including food service and janitorial workers in federal buildings — have spent the past two years engaging in protests and other labor actions to pressure the federal government to improve contractor standards.
Consumer advocacy groups have long complained that there is no link between bad credit and job performance. They argue that such checks lead to discriminatory hiring.
The ink had barely dried on the recommendation issued last month by New York Gov. Cuomo’s Wage Board — calling for a $15 minimum wage in the state’s fast-food industry — when corporate special interests in New York began sounding the alarm.
In the 2016 presidential election, we are approaching a singular and momentous crossroads in our nation’s history. Will we, or will we not, make a serious effort to achieve a low-carbon future for our children and our planet? The fossil fuel magnates and the GOP say no, because we can’t or shouldn’t, but more than 75 percent of Americans want our leaders to take significant steps to fight climate change, according to a poll released in January 2015 by the New York Times, Stanford University, and Resources for the Future.
Given how tough it can be for many people to save for retirement, it’s unfortunate that some companies make it even more difficult. But a large number of 401(k) plans do just that by imposing high costs and offering subpar investment choices.
In 1965, CEOs made about 20 times as much as the average worker. By 2013, they made about 273 times as much. And CEOs of fast food companies made about 1,200 times as much as the typical fast food workers, according to a 2014 report by Demos, a public policy organization in New York.
The co-counsel in the case, Jenn Rolnick-Borchetta of Demos, a progressive policy organization, told POLITICO New York, the need to give information to people who have been stopped by the police “has been ordered, but what that is going to look like isn’t yet figured out.”
“The pilot form has a blank space for officers to fill in their information," said Borchetta, who said that creates a potential problem because “we know officers don’t give their info, or the right info.”
The use of credit reports prevents people from getting jobs they are qualified for and "can have a discriminatory impact," Amy Traub, senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank said. "Our research shows credit reports don't provide information that is actually useful for employers, don't show who is going to be a trustworthy or reliable and does not prevent theft or fraud."
Raising the minimum wage at least somewhat is a wildly popular idea for most Americans. According to a January 2014 Pew poll, 73 percent of Americans—including 53 percent of Republicans—supported raising the minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 to $10.10 an hour.
...while fast food may be an extreme case, it is hardly the only industry – in New York or nationwide – where front-line workers are underpaid and inequality is metastasizing. In fact, our economy is increasingly built on job growth in the most unequal industries: a trend that concentrates more and more income at the top and makes it even more difficult for working people to share in the benefits of economic growth.
That’s why the push to raise wages won’t stop with fast food –or with New York.
The missing link in the inequality debate is not financial stability, but financial domination of the broader economy, what has come to be called “financialization.” Financialization, as a new Demos report demonstrates, is not only measurable by risk and volatility or by the mere expanding volume of financial activities; rather, it should also be measured by how the non-financial economy—the economy of jobs and wages, production and enterprise growth—is increasingly dist
No one gets a job as a retail cashier or shopping assistant to get rich.
While the retail industry is known for its paltry pay across the board, skin color has an alarming influence on how many raises and promotions a worker receives.
White retail workers earn $15.32 an hour, on average, while African American and Latino retail workers average less than $11.75, according to a recent analysis of government data by NAACP and Demos, a left-leaning think tank.
The reason is simple: white workers are mor
The fast food industry is the main driver of compensation inequality in the most disparate sector of the economy, with a CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 2013 of over 1000-to-1.