NEW: SECOND EDITION. "Retiring in the Red" is part of the Borrowing to Make Ends Meet Briefing Paper Series. Reports an 89% average increase in credit card debt among America's seniors from 1992 to 2001. Key Findings:
How Maine can use deposits of state tax revenue to tilt the economic playing field back toward Main Street businesses, our community banks, and long-term job growth.
This report reveals the extent of credit information “mission creep,” examines troubling shortcomings in the for-profit credit reporting industry, and recommends common sense steps to reform the credit reporting system.
America needs an election process that is efficient, trustworthy, and welcoming. We need a renewed sense of citizenship and service, and a government that people can believe in.
States are failing low-income communities and our nation's democracy by not adequately complying with federal law that requires human services agencies to provide voter registration services.
According to all available data, the voter participation rate of the first Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, is among the lowest of any ethnic group in the country. There are complex historical and cultural reasons that make the issue of voting among American Indians and Alaska Natives unique.
In February and March 2012, Demos surveyed a nationally representative sample of 997 low- and middle-income American households who carried credit card debt for three months or more.
On March 15, 2013, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held hearings on the London Whale scandal. The indomitable and indefatigable Chairman Carl Levin, ably supported by the brilliant committee chief of staff, Elise Bean, took on six JP Morgan Chase (“JPMC”) current and former executives for four hours and three regulators for two, with support from other Committee members.
In the wake of the worst effects of the Great Recession, African Americans, like Americans as a whole, are getting their balance sheets in order and paying down credit card debt. But new research from Demos’ National Survey on Credit Card Debt of Low-and Middle-Income Households finds that African Americans face challenges to their financial security that are unlike those of white households.
Demos’ Race-Class Narrative (RCN) project developed an empirically-tested narrative on race and class that resonates with all working people and offers an alternative to—and neutralizes the use of—dog-whistle racism.
What do people mean by “money in politics” or “campaign finance reform”? Running for office requires money—for staff, travel, TV ads, etc. In many countries, much of the cost of public elections is paid for by public funds, so the voters control the process and candidates are only accountable to their constituents. But in most places in the U.S., election campaigns are funded only with private money, most of it coming in the form of large checks from wealthy donors.
Five years after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision, what are the roles of large donors and average voters in selecting and supporting candidates for Congress?
Empirical data showing policymakers, organizers, and progressives that there is clear public support for the notion that racism is a divide-and-conquer tactic creating distrust, undermining belief in government, and causing economic pain for everyone, of every color.
