The D.C. Council is considering a bill that would bar businesses from performing credit checks on job applicants. Supporters of the legislation say credit histories can be inaccurate and indicate little about workers’ character.[...]
“Our research shows poor credit more often tells a story of personal misfortune far more convincingly than one of poor work habits,” says Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at Demos.[...]
According to the Demos report, credit checks were never intended to be used for hiring.
Happiness is a lot easier for those paid a fair wage, which apparently is not what many federal contractor employees get.
In a complaint filed Monday with the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said the Lionel Henderson Corp. “has misclassified and underpays workers” who are customer service representatives for the National Flood Insurance Program.
[...]As the next CEO of America, Mr. Trump can turn his promise into policy. In his first 100 days in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump should sign an executive order to make sure that the $1.3 trillion in taxpayer-dollars our Government spends annually rewards corporations that create "more jobs and better wages" for Americans.
Demos policy analyst Catherine Ruetschlin joins Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! to discuss global fast food strikes taking place, protesting the vast wage disparities between executi
The greatest challenge facing President-elect Trump is following through with his campaign promises to raise the living standard for working-class Americans and bring back manufacturing jobs.
Women workers can keep the pressure on city- and state-level legislators ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
"Find out what your city council is doing in terms of a fair working wage, paid leave, and paid sick days. Get those on the agenda. That is a lever that is much easier to influence."
The throngs of protesters who attended the Women’s March on Washington, and who continue to demonstrate at airports, town halls, and on city streets around the country, have made clear that opposition to Donald Trump’s radical Republican agenda will be sustained and powerful. But to earn the trust of the majority of Americans who reject Trumpism, Democrats will have to go beyond simple resistance. They’ll have to show that if voters restore them to power, they’ll actually improve the lives of working families. [...]
Demos Policy Analyst Robert Hiltonsmith testifies before the Congressional Progressive Caucus on wage theft and its effects on the earnings of low-income workers.
It's one of the biggest financial decisions you'll ever make: choosing what to do with your 401(k) at retirement. That account may be the largest asset you will rely on for income in later life. You could leave it where it is or roll the money to investments inside an IRA. The right decision could give you hundreds of thousands of added dollars over a 30-year retirement. [...]
“Put some mustard on it.” That’s the advice that Chicago McDonald’s worker Brittney Berry allegedly received from her manager after suffering a scalding burn on her arm from the grill used to make eggs. And this was no minor burn – she was eventually taken to the hospital in an ambulance, and had to miss work for six months.
Last week, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer unveiled a new plan to regulate financial advisers, the first of its kind, that tries to protect the average investor from advisers who don’t have to put their clients’ best interests first.
Late Tuesday, news broke that yet another unarmed American, a black man named Walter Scott, was killed by a white police officer. As with Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and Rodney King nearly 25 years ago, the brutality was captured on video for the world to see. The New York Times put the damning evidence at the very top of its homepage and it quickly spread throughout social media networks provoking outrage, disgust, horror, grief. These reactions have come most vocally from black Americans.
Middle class income stagnation, and the inequality that it causes, is the principal economic challenge for the nation — and finance is to blame for it.
"You are in a Catch-22," said Emmanuel Caicedo, a senior campaign strategist with Demos, one member of a coalition of 79 labor and civil rights organizations that formed the NYC Coalition to Stop Credit Checks in Employment.
"You can't pay your bills and so your credit is bad. And then you can't get a job to pay your bills because of your credit."
Federal contracting with private vendors supports about two million low-wage private sector jobs, according to Demos, a national research institute, in their study, "Underwriting Bad Jobs." That is "more than the number of low wage workers at Walmart and McDonald's combined."
