Search Demos.org

Walmart's raises to $9 an hour in 2015 and then to $10 an hour in 2016 is a positive step forward, but it still falls short of giving workers the wages they need.

Advocates and policymakers are frequently asked how they plan to pay for progressive policy investments. This memo provides guidance on how to respond.

This Demos Explainer explores the tension between political support for deficit reduction versus job creation and economic security policies. 

This Explainer explores how the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is used in measuring our economic growth and whether alternative measures are also needed to provide a more comprehensive outlook of economic progress.  

The working class today is much more complex and diverse than the white, male, manufacturing archetype often evoked in popular narratives.

Both economic and racial justice are core progressive priorities, but too often we discuss them separately. On the contrary, racial and economic harms are intertwined, as are our desired solutions to them. Wealthy elites exploit racial fears to turn working people against each other and government; economic pain increases racial resentment and facilitates scapegoating, fueling support for punitive measures against people of color.

A number of states have laws demanding citizens produce documentary evidence of citizenship to register to vote. These laws have far-reaching implications for voter participation in our democracy.

Climate change poses a tremendous threat to Florida. Sea level rise, more intense precipitation, and stronger hurricanes increase the risk of natural disaster and imperil the state’s economy and its citizens’ safety.

Why, without swift and bold action to mitigate climate change, Nevada will grow more and more vulnerable to potentially severe economic impacts.

Arizona’s citizens and its economy are among America’s most vulnerable to the growing adverse impacts of climate change.

Climate change threatens serious harm to Virginia’s economy, its people and its treasured natural resources.

While GDP has been steadily increasing, indicating a growing economy, other metrics of progress show a very different picture.

How and why two types of theft—wage theft and shoplifting—are treated so differently.

Most states have very far to go in making their selective public institutions representative, and thus truly public.

25 Federal Policies to Lift Up Working People

Now is the time for citizens, workers, employers, and policymakers to come together once again to rebuild pathways to the middle class, create good jobs with fair pay and decent benefits, and ensure that prosperity is broadly shared for the next generation.

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

An outline of Demos' approach to engaging across climate and equity issues, their respective fields, and partners working in the fields.

Quantifying the cost of climate change to millennials and their children, compared to a world without climate change.

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