"I've interviewed lots of police officers about their lives on the force," Donovan X. Ramsey, a fellow at progressive think tank Demos, told Mic via email. "What's clear to me from those conversations is that, within cop culture, use of force is sometimes not taken seriously. One reason for this is because officers deal with pretty grim scenarios regularly. As a result, they can develop a gallows humor that shocks civilians — and for good reason."
Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, senior counsel for Demos, praised Oklahoma for agreeing to address what she said was “a disconcerting number of people who should have gotten voter-registration assistance and didn’t get it at all.” Demos and other organizations pursued the case based on statistics showing a disproportionately low number of low-income people who were registered in Oklahoma, which sparked an investigation.
“If we begin to think of education as a part of the economic mobility system, then we can begin to think of education’s implications for children long after school,” Elliott, who also serves as the founding director of the Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion (AEDI), explained at a recent New America event.
Oklahoma Agrees To Bring Public Assistance Agencies into Compliance with the Law
NEW YORK, WASHINGTON and OKLAHOMA CITY (July 30, 2015)– Voting rights advocates and Oklahoma officials announced today that a settlement has been reached to provide more effective voter registration opportunities to citizens throughout the state.
Today, we reached an important agreement with the state of Oklahoma that will bring comprehensive voter registration opportunities to citizens throughout the state.
Yesterday, the Obama administration announced a limited pilot program to allow some federal and state prisoners to receive Pell grants. Predictably, the plan has already drawn criticism from Republicans, who objected to the administration’s decision to bypass Congress to jumpstart the program.
Raising the minimum wage at least somewhat is a wildly popular idea for most Americans. According to a January 2014 Pew poll, 73 percent of Americans—including 53 percent of Republicans—supported raising the minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 to $10.10 an hour.
Treating these issues as mutually exclusive obscures part of why student debt is a major issue for so many, and what debt-free college would hope to achieve.
“This view that college pays off and that most people pay off their loans, is narrow and tragically flawed,” Heulsman said in his opening remarks. “This is a crisis of equity, it’s a crisis of opportunity and we’ll argue it’s a crisis for the economy.”
But it is the recent, explosive growth of Uber and other "sharing economy" companies that have attracted the most concern.
HomeJoy recently announced it would shut down in the face of four lawsuits alleging it should treat the people who clean homes on its behalf as employees rather than as independent contractors not entitled to the same workplace protections.
"If a technologist wants to disrupt an industry that has middle-class jobs and replace them with insecure, not-as-good jobs, there has to be a conversation about that,"
What would America look like if donors didn’t rule the world? It’s an interesting question and one worth pondering as the 2016 Presidential campaigns kick off. Available data reveals that donors not only have disproportionate influence over politics, but that influence is wielded largely to keep issues that would benefit the working and middle classes off of the table.
New U.S. Census data released on July 19 confirm what we already knew about American elections: Voter turnout in the United States is among the lowest in the developed world. Only 42 percent of Americans voted in the 2014 midterm elections, the lowest level of voter turnout since 1978. And midterm voters tend to be older, whiter and richer than the general population.
The implications of a state labor board's July 22 decision to raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $15 an hour from $8.75 are clear: Other industries with low-wage workers could find themselves facing a similar pay hike soon.
Next up is likely the retail industry, followed by home care, child care and even adjunct professors, said Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a liberal think tank.
"The patchwork of wage hikes by locality and industry, as well as the falling unemployme
Like every generation before us, Americans are coming together to preserve a democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people. American democracy is premised on the consent of the governed, and on the idea that we all deserve a say in the government decisions that affect our families. We stand united supporting commonsense protections that recognize the people as the ultimate check on the corrosive influence of money in politics, which is eroding the very foundation of self-government.
This is a joint effort by the following organizations:
Demos Vice President of Policy and Research Tamara Draut issued the following statement:
"After two months of deliberations, hearings, and moving testimonies, the wage board created by Governor Cuomo voted yesterday to recommend a wage increase in a series of steps to $15 an hour by 2018 in New York City and by 2021 in the rest of the state. Fast-food workers’ decision to challenge their powerful corporate bosses was a huge risk—and it paid off.
Our hearts are shrouded, but our vision is clear: we see a world without fear for all of our people—a world where there is no dispute that #BlackLivesMatter.
The dominance of big money in our politics makes it far harder for people of color to exert political power and effectively advocate for their interests as both wealth and power are consolidated by a small, very white, share of the population.
...while fast food may be an extreme case, it is hardly the only industry – in New York or nationwide – where front-line workers are underpaid and inequality is metastasizing. In fact, our economy is increasingly built on job growth in the most unequal industries: a trend that concentrates more and more income at the top and makes it even more difficult for working people to share in the benefits of economic growth.
That’s why the push to raise wages won’t stop with fast food –or with New York.
Chanting "$15.00 and a union," thousands of federal contract workers walked off their jobs yesterday, led by the Senate's cafeteria workers who serve Senators their food. They were joined by Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, led by Keith Ellison (D-Minn) and Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz). Sanders announced they were introducing legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15.00 an hour.
The New York fast food wage board today recommended a wage increase in a series of steps to $15 an hour by 2018 in New York City and by 2021 in the rest of the state.
