The poll results indicate that politics may soon catch up to the reality borrowers are facing, said Mark Huelsman, the associate director of policy and research at Demos, a left-leaning think tank.
“It’s a sign of the increasing anxiety that voters and families are feeling about their own debt or their children going into to debt or them going into debt for their children,” he said.
Experian Boost comes with downsides for consumers, according to Amy Traub, associate director of research at the public policy group, Demos. She said lenders will be able to use the data they glean from consumer bank accounts in ways the public may not understand.
"It also allows them to make marketing decisions: who to promote which products to, how to get us hooked on the products that are most profitable and lucrative for the lender, " said Traub.
As Mark Huelsman, a policy analyst at Demos, an advocacy group tweeted: "the average family inheritance to a white college grad can pay off the average undergrad debt balance and have enough left over for a 20 percent down [payment] on a $575,000 home." That’s assuming the inheritor has student debt to begin with.
In his final hours as U.S. Attorney General last month, Jeff Sessions issued a memo limiting the Justice Department’s power to pursue and enforce federal consent decrees with local police departments. [...]
“This will allow the political leadership of DOJ to let abusive departments off the hook even when they haven’t instituted the reforms necessary to turn themselves around,” says Chiraag Bains, director of legal strategies at Demos and a former federal prosecutor with the Civil Rights Division under Obama's DOJ.
If the goal is to resegregate higher education, the efforts have largely worked. Amid budget cuts and attacks on affirmative action, elite public colleges are enrolling fewer black students than they were a generation ago.
Democrats have proposed H.R. 1, a bill that would make our democracy more equitable, improved access for vulnerable groups to have a real say in how we are governed, and roll back voting restrictions that have disproportionately harmed people of color.
Racism has long driven pervasive political, economic, and social disparities in this country.
Those inequities arise not just from individualized and blatant forms of discrimination but also through historical, cumulative, structural policies that have combined to inhibit wealth, opportunity, well-being, and voice for communities of color.
Loans may be one solution for helping students afford college and increase achievement, but grants that don't have to be repaid is another. The researchers are working on a new study that examines the academic effects of federal loans versus grant aid and agree that the effects of the federal Pell Grant may be stronger on academic performance, Marx said.
In answer to the question, "why, after 200 years, [...] do we need an amendment to say that we are equal citizens?," Demos Senior Advisor for Legal Strategies Brenda Wright lays ou
Heather McGhee, who has been with left-leaning think tank Demos for the past 15 years, has announced that she will transition out of her role as president. She’ll become a distinguished senior fellow at the organization. In the four years McGhee spent at the helm, Demos’s budget increased from $8 million to $14 million. The think tank will begin searching for a new president next month.
As we celebrate International Women’s Day, we are thankful for another year of power, spirit, and the vision for a more equitable future in the face of a system and political leaders who try to convince us otherwise. Today (and every day) we amplify the voices of the mentors who guide our creative visions, those who inspire and shift us into action, and the centuries old history of women, femmes, and allies whose voices and stories continue to shape the movement. [...]
Faced with jobs that don’t pay enough to make ends meet, health-care costs that break the budget, and public services exposed to countless rounds of cutbacks despite a growing economy, working people will push back. And, like the teachers across the state of West Virginia who walked out on strike for nine days and won meaningful raises and a freeze in health costs for all the state’s public employees, working people who push back sometimes win. [...]
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has signed a law that will create publicly financed elections, reversing her previous opposition to a plan that advocates say will help curb money’s influence in District politics.
Bowser announced that she was throwing her support behind the Fair Elections Act, which was approved unanimously by the D.C. Council in February. The law, which will first affect elections in 2020, will steer millions annually toward the campaigns of local candidates and is aimed at reducing their reliance on deep-pocketed donors. [...]
