Americans’ lives, health and livelihoods would be put at risk if so called “regulatory reform” proposals now being considered by the U.S. Congress were to become law, slowing or stopping the regulatory process.
These dangerous proposals before congress include The Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, The Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA), and The Regulatory Flexibility Improvement Act (RFIA).
In 2013, student debt surpassed $1.2 trillion,1 highlighting a disturbing new reality: for an increasing share of students, higher education comes at the cost of long term debt. In 1989, 41 percent of graduating college seniors left school with student loan debt, which averaged $26,600. By 2012, two-thirds of graduating seniors had assumed such debt.2 Higher education was once the gateway to the middle class.
It seems reasonable to ask that this law, which would give the Executive Branch the power to extend its version of cost-benefit analysis to independent agencies, show that its benefits are greater than its costs. A close analysis of the proposal’s impact on the financial sector shows that it fails this test.
We have analyzed the likely impact on voter turnout should Hawaii adopt Election Day Registration (EDR). Under the system proposed in Hawaii, eligible voters who miss the current 30-day deadline for registering by mail may be able to register to vote on Election Day. The availability of Election Day Registration procedures should give voters who have not previously registered the opportunity to vote.
Authors R. Michael Alvarez (California Institute of Technology) and Jonathan Nagler (New York University) have analyzed the likely impact on voter turnout should Maryland adopt Same Day Registration (SDR). Under the system proposed in Maryland, eligible voters who miss the current 21-day deadline for registering may be able to register to vote during the state's 7-day early voting period, or on Election Day.
In a recent report from the Heritage Center for Data Analysis (2008) titled Welfare Reform a Factor in Lower Voter Registration at Public Assistance Offices, authors Muhlhausen and Tyrrell argue that the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)--passed in 1996 as part of Clinton's Welfare overhaul-- is an important cause of the decline in the number of individuals who have registered to vote in public assistance agencies.
A Demos briefing book, with state-and federal-level application, to help elected officials advance new policies that promote electoral participation and provide all Americans with access to a stable, secure middle class.
Sustaining a strong middle class – and a strong and competitive American economy – over the long term requires a foundation of robust public investment.
The manufacturing sector once offered a large supply of stable, middle-class jobs to American workers. Yet middle-income manufacturing jobs have been disappearing from the United States for the past 30 years. While technological innovation has played a much-recognized role in the erosion of the nation’s manufacturing base, policy failures also contributed to the disappearance of industrial jobs. Leveling the playing field for domestic manufacturing will ensure that the U.S.
Investing in a skilled workforce is vital to America’s long-term economic growth and global competitiveness. Even as the Zero-16 Contract for Education proposed earlier would enable young people graduating from high school to pursue college or career training, the Career Opportunity Plan would increase opportunities for those who have already begun their working lives, particularly low-wage workers and the unemployed, to qualify for jobs that can support a middle-class standard of living.
Current public policies fall far short of addressing the basic disconnect that exists between an economy that produces a high number of low-wage jobs and a society where the cost of living has risen considerably in many areas, driven by the increased prices for housing and health care. The minimum wage, instituted in 1938, has failed to keep pace with inflation and doesn't protect against poverty. It has lost 24 percent of its purchasing power since 1979.
The federal government helps Americans build personal wealth in a variety of ways, most notably with tax breaks related to homeownership and retirement savings. However, most of this assistance goes to people who are already doing well. In 2003, the federal government spent $110.5 billion in homeownership incentives, the bulk of which accrue to better-off families. For example, nearly 90 percent of the mortgage interest deduction benefit accrues to tax filers with adjusted gross incomes over $50,000. Homeowners are even able to deduct mortgage interest on second residences.
There has been a fundamental shift in our nation's priorities for ensuring access to higher education. In the 1970s and 1980s, most aid was awarded in grants, while loans remained relatively low. Over the last two decades, federal aid has shifted away from grants to loans, pricing out students from low-incomes and leaving the average college graduate with over $18,000 in student loan debt. Unless dramatic new investments are made, America's promise of equal opportunity and social mobility remains in great peril.
Many citizens are anxious not just about the security of their jobs and adequacy of their incomes, but also about related issues: high levels of credit card debt, healthcare and childcare costs, and the affordability of homes and college tuition. These day-to-day worries are increasingly accompanied by a deeper anxiety -- that the middle class way of life in America is endangered; that it is harder for many Americans to get into the middle class, and harder for those in the middle class to stay there and feel truly secure.
In response to ever-increasing financial pressures, families have come to depend on high-cost credit as a way to bridge the gap between stagnant or decreasing incomes and rising costs. How are families coping with their new burden? To hang on to the American Dream, to be part of the ownership society, homeowners are depleting their homes’ equity to pay off a growing mountain of unsecured debt —a financial strategy fraught with serious consequences.
Although Americans of all ages have endured the economic and social changes of the post-industrial era, today's young people are the first to experience its full weight as they try to start their adult lives. But the challenges facing young adults also reflect the failure of public policy to address the changing realities of building a life in the 21st century.
Young adults in North Carolina and across the country are confronting an economic reality vastly different from that of their parent’s generation. Over the past three decades, economic opportunity and security for all but the most affluent and most highly educated has declined. Today, North Carolina’s workers in their early twenties earn almost a fifth less in real terms than workers their age forty years ago, while those in their mid twenties earn only three percentage points more than workers their age four decades ago.
The American Dream used to mean that if you put in a hard day’s work, you could expect good wages, benefits, and a better life for your kids. But the kinds of jobs that can provide a solid middle-class life in return for hard work are in short supply—unemployment is up, earnings are down, and hard-won benefits are being lost.
The American Dream used to mean that if you put in a hard day's work, you could expect good wages, benefits, and a better life for your kids. Today, the kinds of jobs that can provide a solid middle-class life in return for hard work are in short supply—unemployment is up, earnings are flat, and hard-won benefits are being lost. The future of Wisconsin’s middle class, the backbone of Wisconsin’s economy for more than half a century, is at risk.
The American Dream used to mean that if you put in a hard day's work, you could expect good wages, benefits, and a better life for your kids. But the kinds of jobs that can provide a solid middle-class life in return for hard work are in short supply in New York-unemployment is up, earnings are down, and hard-won benefits are being lost. The future of the middle class, which has been the backbone of New York's economy for more than half a century, is at risk.
New York's strong and vibrant middle class didn't just happen.
