America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy, a new book from Demos Distinguished Senior Fellow James Gustave Speth, examines the grave and interconnected challenges facing Americans -- joblessness, failing schools, declining health, intractable poverty, income inequality, a poisoned environment, dwindling natural resources, indebtedness, climate change, war – and outlines the urgent changes we must embrace now in order to leave a prosperous, secure and healthy nation for future g
A study by Demos, a liberal research center, found that a median-income couple that invested in 401(k)’s for 40 years with fees averaging 1.6 percent a year would achieve $354,850 in assets at average savings rates, but only after paying $154,794 in investment fees.
Elisabeth Badinter is picking a fight with her book The Conflict, in which she demonizes pretty much every form of maternal bonding. And I was pleased to see Sarah Blustain give it to her in “Mère Knows Best”, rightly mocking Badinter’s attacks on social science, breast-feeding, and ecology. No writer should get away with defending the cancer-causing chemical BPA in the name of feminism, and Blustain doesn’t let her.
Something that you hear about quite a lot these days is the "all of the above" energy plan. The phrase is in both party platforms with the general idea being that our energy needs should be met by using all forms of energy available -- coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables, biofuels, etc. Diversifying our energy sources and moving away from strictly relying on fossil fuels is a good idea.
NEW YORK – As millions of young adults begin their fall semesters across the nation, new findings from a national survey by policy center Demos reveal the relationship between college costs and credit card debt, and its impact on students and their parents.
The United States needs to be reimagined. A recent study from the Pew Research Center tells us that in economic terms the middle class "has suffered its worst decade in modern history." It's shrinking.
With jobs scarce, wages declining and the nation's wealth concentrating ever more intensely at the top, the middle class has shrunk in size for the first time since World War II.
Give states additional Child Care and Development Block Grant funding to double the number of children served by child care assistance, make the federal Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit refundable, and expand Head Start and Early Head Start.
Home ownership is commonly understood as the quintessential marker of having arrived in the middle class: a family’s home is often the single largest asset that they own and has traditionally served as an important vehicle for wealth accumulation and economic security.
Many Florida families have been paying up to 25 percent of median income for public in-state college costs — out of reach for some middle-class parents who have taken recent pay cuts or lost jobs, according to a new study.
Some eight years ago, I was at a presentation by Vanguard founder Jack Bogle at a business journalists' conference in Denver, and when his PowerPoint crashed, and he had to use transparencies on a vintage 20th-century overheard projector. After the presentation, he let me keep them, and they still serve as a sort of Rosetta Stone for me for enlightened investing.
MIAMI – In just three years Florida’s higher education funding per student decreased 40 percent, according to a new report by national public policy center Demos and the Florida-based Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy (RISEP). As a direct result, Floridian families now spend 25% of median income on the cost of a single year of attendance at a public four-year college. The situation is only looking grimmer, with the recent $300 million cut to public four-year universities.
Investors who were paying attention got a cold slap of reality this spring when the progressive think tank Demos released a study showing that the median household could expect to pay more than $150,000 in 401(k) fees over the course of a working lifetime, or about a third of potential investment returns. What's more, about two-thirds of 401(k) investors had no idea that they were paying such fees.
When I was a student, my English-major friends warned me that economists were people who didn’t have enough personality to become accountants. It seemed like a terrible accusation at the time. Today, I worry less about the personality than the efficacy of both professions.
It seems there is little real relief on the horizon.
“If you’re coming out of college with an average number of $20,000 to $25,000 in debt and there’s no job out there, you’ve got a real problem,” said John Quinterno, a researcher who has studied the consequences of student debt.
Washington, DC - The United States Student Association (“USSA”), the nation’s oldest and largest student-run, student-led organization, yesterday filed a brief amicus curiae supporting the constitutionality of the University of Texas’ undergraduate admissions program, which is being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court in Fisher v. University of Texas, No. 11-345. USSA is comprised of more than four million students with diverse backgrounds who are currently enrolled in American colleges and universities.
A group responsible for development of the Willets Point space next to Citi Field said Walmart wouldn’t be a part of its conception.
Late last week, the Daily News reported that Walmart quietly lobbied city officials to include them in the development of the area near Citi Field that currently houses auto body shops. Regardless, according to the group responsible for the development project, Walmart’s lobbying efforts are news to them.
The days between the Fourth of July and Bastille Day on the 14th are known for fireworks on both sides of the Atlantic. This year, more rockets and firecrackers than usual were going off, but they were inside hearing rooms in the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress. Barclays bank announced that it had been fined more than $450 million by regulators from both countries, and its CEO, Robert E. Diamond Jr., and COO, Jerry del Missier, both resigned. The fines were part of a settlement that granted Barclays immunity from potentially worse punishment for its manipulation of interest rates.
