The language contained in some credit card agreements is written at a 27th-grade level, according to a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. And many cardholder agreements today contain language requiring a minimum of a 15th-grade education, the equivalent of three years of college.
Yet with only about half of U.S. adults reading above an eighth-grade level, the report said, credit card disclosures may be meaningless to millions of Americans.
New York, NY — Today, 100 million Americans are involved with organizations or movements engaged in social change. Despite vast and quickly improving methods of communications and interconnectivity, many who work to "make a difference" are hobbled by technical barriers, often because there is no roadmap to connect these new information sharing methods.
New York, NY — More than 5 million Americans are directly denied the right to vote, and millions more are misinformed about their eligibility to vote, due to a confusing and archaic national patchwork of "felony disfranchisement" laws, according to a new briefing paper by Demos, a national, non-partisan public policy and research center.
Felony disfranchisement is the practice of denying people with felony convictions the right to vote. The American tradition of states determining their own election laws has led to a national patchwork of policies and practices that result in de jure and de facto denial of the vote based on felony conviction status Currently, most states impose some voting restrictions on people with felony convictions, ranging from a prohibition from voting while incarcerated to a virtual lifetime ban.
Apart from our Republican-dominated federal government, no single entity boasts more lawsuits against it than Wal-Mart. Class action suits in motion at the moment read like a pamphlet from the nascent worker's rights movements of the early 20th century. They include: gender discrimination, racial discrimination, unpaid wages, exploitation of undocumented workers, pressure to work overtime or off the clock, and denied lunch breaks. And those are just the class action suits.
New York, NY — Millions of disabled and language-minority American citizens face impediments to voting because many states do not meet federal ballot and polling place access requirements, according to a new briefing paper by Demos, a national, non-partisan public policy and research center.
NEWARK, NJ — In an effort to increase voter participation in the Garden State, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and other high-profile voter rights' advocates, during a public forum today, will urge New Jersey to reform state election law to allow residents in future elections to register to vote up to and including Election Day. This proposal, if adopted, would replacing the current system under which anyone who registers less than 21 days before an election is barred from voting until the following election.
A properly functioning democracy encourages all eligible citizens to participate in elections. Our nation's commitment to this goal has resulted in landmark laws to assure that access to voting is available to all, including persons with disabilities and U.S. citizens who may have limited proficiency in English.
New York, NY — Provisional ballots could again be a leading concern at the polls this year, with new figures showing one in three — more than 650,000 of 2 million cast--were left uncounted or discarded in 2004, according to a new briefing paper by Demos, a national, non-partisan public policy and research center.
The 2000 election will be remembered as a national debacle in which millions of citizens were denied the right to vote and have that vote be properly counted. To remedy the problems of 2000, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). One of HAVA's principal provisions required states to adopt a system of "fail-safe" voting in which a person who goes to the polls, but whose name is not on the voter lists or who cannot produce the necessary identification, is allowed to vote on a provisional ballot.
New York, NY — Millions of eligible voters could lose their right to vote in coming years if new state and national photo identification and proof of citizenship requirements for voting are implemented, according to a new briefing paper published by Demos, a national public policy and research center. The paper, part of Demos' 2006 Challenges to Fair Elections Series, offers evidence that new and prospective voter ID requirements, in states and on the national level, have been advanced without adequate consideration of facts or the potential impact on voting rights.
As a nation, we now face a serious threat to the very nature of our democracy, and the core American belief that wide electoral participation by as many eligible voters as possible is central to our prosperity and success. With salacious and often unfounded allegations of efforts to vote by non-citizens, the deceased, felons and even pets, partisans, fringe organizations, and opinion makers of all kinds have pressed for strict new voter identification requirements. But the facts do not warrant these extreme proposals. All available evidence suggests that voter fraud is exceedingly rare.
Cindy Zeldin, Federal Affairs Coordinator for the Economic Opportunity Program, writes that mega-retailer's abandonment of traditional health insurance in favor of high-deductible health insurance takes the benefits squeeze to a whole new level: it puts a dagger through the heart of the very concept of insurance.
Gen Y is the first generation to really bear the weight of college expenses through loans instead of grants and other financial aid. This, combined with credit card debt, is leaving cash-strapped college grads in bleak financial situations ... often ending in bankruptcy.
New York, NY — Economic Opportunity and a healthy democracy should be central focuses of America's political debate, according to a new policy briefing book published today by Demos: A Network for Ideas & Action, a national, non-partisan public policy, research and advocacy organization.
Americans in their 20s - those broadly defined as ‘Generation Y' - are supposed to be more concerned about weighty issues like world affairs, local politics, and the environment than their ‘Gen X' predecessors. But they've also distinguished themselves another way: They're the most leveraged generation in American history, and they have, for the most part, the cost of their college education to thank for that distinction.
Cleveland, OH —A federal lawsuit filed in Cleveland today charges that Ohio's Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, and the Director of its Department of Job and Family Services (DJFS), Barbara Riley, have violated the rights of thousands of low-income Ohioans by failing to provide voter registration opportunities in public assistance offices as required by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The NVRA is a federal law enacted 13 years ago to encourage voter registration and turnout in elections.
Cleveland, OH — A federal lawsuit filed in Cleveland today charges that Ohio's Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, and the Director of its Department of Job and Family Services (DJFS), Barbara Riley, have violated the rights of thousands of low-income Ohioans by failing to provide voter registration opportunities in public assistance offices as required by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The NVRA is a federal law enacted 13 years ago to encourage voter registration and turnout in elections.
New York, NY — Demos, a leading national public policy organization, denounced the passage of the House of Representatives bill (H.R. 4844) also known as the "Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006," which would require all voters to obtain and present government-issued photo ID by 2008, and present proof of citizenship before voting in 2010.