NEW YORK -- The United States faces a retirement crisis that threatens future retirees and the next generation of workers. The voluntary employer-sponsored retirement system covers fewer and fewer Americans, often leaving Social Security, originally intended as a supplement to other forms of retirement, as the major source of income for 40 percent of older Americans. Even workers still covered by an employer retirement plan have had their benefits weakened.
NEW YORK - Just in time for Black Friday, when consumers rely on scores of retail workers to help them navigate the stressful holiday season, a new study released today by national public policy center Demos, Retail’s Hidden Potential: How Raising Wages Would Benefit Workers, the Industry and the Economy Overall, examines the economic benefits of a wage increase for large chain retail workers on consumer experiences, businesses, fa
NEW YORK -- With $4 trillion in annual revenue, over 15 million employees and projections to be one of the largest sources of new jobs in the next decade, the retail sector plays a vital role in the economy, wielding great influence over the living standards for many Americans.
The job of reforming Wall Street is far from finished. The most profitable investments for the big banks continue to be Washington lobbyists chipping away at reform and litigators challenging every major rule in court.
As we celebrate Occupy Wall Street’s first birthday, the movement's pivoted from financial regulation to focus on crushing consumer debt. While reforming debt is crucial (particularly student debt), finance remains an imminent threat to the American economy. We shouldn't forget it.
In a speech at the University of Kansas in February of the tumultuous year 1968, Robert F. Kennedy spoke of the plight of the poorest Americans, those struggling in devastated rural areas, and on Indian reservations and in the tenements and housing projects of the inner cities. He was blunt. “We must begin,” he said, “to end this disgrace of the other America.”
As early as today, the Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives will be bringing H.R. 4078, the so-called “Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act” up for a vote. Like so much of what passes for legislation in Congress these days, this legislation is more a statement of philosophy than a thought out piece of policy.
Work as a hotel housekeeper isn’t an easy job under any circumstances. For more than 400,000 predominantly female and immigrant workers, the work means lifting heavy mattresses, stretching to clean high surfaces, and often scrubbing bathroom floors on hands and knees. Full-time workers earn just $21,000 a year, on average.
NEW YORK – Fifty years ago, Michael Harrington's classic exposé The Other America blew open the reality of widespread poverty in the United States, and while it paved the way for policies that have improved the lives of millions of Americans, the problem persists today. Today, Demos and The American Prospect are co-hosting a conference and launching an interactive data visualization to examine why proven solutions to poverty are going unheeded, leaving 46.1 million Americans in poverty in 2010.
A median-income, two-earner household will pay nearly $155,000 over the course of their lifetime in 401(k) fees, according to a new analysis by national public policy center Demos.
As wary as the public may be of Wall Street, it is not wary enough because the financial industry rips people off even more than most of us realize -- specifically, in 401(k) fees.
The story as it now stands for Facebook's IPO supports a broader narrative depressingly familiar to most Americans: Which is that the stock market is a rigged game.
It's no secret that Facebook's IPO will feed one of the most troubling trends in America today: the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite.
It’s hard to imagine that an industry that has spent over $28 million on federal and state campaign contributions this election cycle alone would be victimized by government regulation, but that is the cry coming from the oil and gas industry. Well, more accurately, that is the cry coming from politicians in the pockets of those industries.
By now it's pretty clear that Mitt Romney's recent claim about female job losses during the Obama presidency has more to do with selective number fudging and electoral pandering than factual accuracy.
NEW YORK – A new report reveals that African Americans remain disproportionately excluded from corporate and nonprofit board membership in New York City: Of the 697 directors that sit on the boards of the city’s 25 largest employers, only 5.7 percent are black. The study, by John Morning and national policy center Demos, also surveyed black participation on the boards of 14 premiere cultural institutions in New York City, finding that only 33 of the total 581 directors were African American.