WASHINGTON—Today,Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced The Equal Employment for All Act. This legislation would prohibit the widespread use of personal credit history in employment, an unjust practice that poses a serious barrier to economic security for many Americans and leads to discriminatory hiring practices against people of color and the long-term unemployed.
Yesterday I criticized Arthur Brooks for arguing in the New York Times that more free enterprise is a key to greater happiness. Beyond the fact that the happiest people in the world tend to live in European nations that have tempered the market with strong government, here's another key point to consider: Often those companies which innovate to practice a purer form of free enterprise are absolutely miserable places to work.
A new survey finds that African-Americans are much more likely than whites to be called by debt collectors, despite both groups reporting relatively equal levels of debt and repayment rates.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced legislation on Tuesday that would prohibit employers from requiring job applicants to disclose their credit history.
In a conference call with reporters, Warren argued that a person's poor credit history is often the result of medical bills, job loss or divorce and does not reflect his ability to perform a job.
Job-hunters are increasingly being asked to agree to allow potential employers to view their personal credit information, a development that Sen. Elizabeth Warren says is unfairly keeping people out of the job market who've had financial setbacks or have reports that contain inaccurate information.
Hank Ronan knew he would get the job. He had sailed through three rounds of interviews and hit it off with the doctors at the diagnostic center in Annandale, Va., where he had applied to be a driver for $11 an hour.
Shuttling patients to appointments was a world away from his 20 years as a software engineer, but it was the best that Ronan could find after being laid off in 2011. He was eager to get back to work and granted the doctor’s office permission to run a credit check. Ronan never heard back, he said Tuesday in an interview. [...]
The opportunity to work hard and get ahead is a core value of American society. Yet today in the United States, qualified job seekers are turned away from employment because of their personal credit history. People whose credit is damaged as a result of medical debt, student loans, a layoff, divorce, predatory lending, identity theft, or simple error are shut out of jobs—despite a lack of evidence connecting someone’s credit history with their job performance.
Demos applauds the work of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) who today introduced The Equal Employment for All Act, legislation that would prohibit the widespread use of pe
In the course of his 2,000-word article on happiness on happiness in the Sunday Times, Arthur Brooks -- who leads the American Enterprise Institute -- offers a lecture on how work and earned success are keys to happiness. He also expresses concern about declining mobility in the United States -- a concern you don't hear often from the right.
So far, so good.
Generations Initiative is a network of leaders, organizations, and communities that work together to raise awareness and promote solutions to harness America's current demographic revolution to our country's advantage. It aims to build on the strengths of each generation to ensure our democratic and economic vitality. The goal is to catalyze action that transforms these demographic shifts into an asset for our collective future.
Generations Initiative is a network of leaders, organizations, and communities that work together to raise awareness and promote solutions to harness America's current demographic revolution to our country's advantage. It aims to build on the strengths of each generation to ensure our democratic and economic vitality. The goal is to catalyze action that transforms these demographic shifts into an asset for our collective future.
Barring some big surprise in the 2014 election, not much is likely to change in Washington until 2017. Modern presidents rarely get much done in their second terms, after they've spent their initial political capital and been battered by critics. The most important thing at this point is that President Obama secures the victories of his first term -- health reform first and foremost. Anything on top of that -- and plenty could go on top in the best case scenario -- would be gravy.
President Obama has proclaimed that thanks to the Volcker Rule "never again will the American taxpayer be held hostage by a bank that is `Too Big to Fail', " the reality is a bit more complicated.
Though the rule issued today by financial regulators seeks to ban proprietary trading -- essentially gambling with federally insured deposits -- some experts argue that banks will find ways to get around the restrictions to continue engaging in risky behavior. [...]
Though they are important, let’s be honest: Municipal budget figures can be mind-numbingly boring. Even in high-profile, high-stakes dramas like Detroit’s bankruptcy, the sheer flood of numbers can encourage people to simply tune it all out for fear of being further confused.
Today, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Representative Rosa DeLauro introduced the Family Act, a bill that would grant every employee in the country access to up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. It’s a move that’s been long in coming. Really long.
I was almost a member of the United Auto Workers union. At the turn of the millennium, I was a graduate student working as a teaching assistant at Columbia University. While I had expected the low pay, the arbitrariness of some university decisions making left me eager for a greater voice at work. I joined other graduate student workers organizing with UAW Local 2110, which ably represents the office and administrative employees at the university. But it was not to be.
The Aspen Institute hosted an event today on the familiar challenge of closing the skills gap. The people at Aspen, including Melody Barnes, have some good ideas on how to do this -- and also some serious funding from JP Morgan Chase, which has a major initiative on closing the skills gap.
NEW YORK -- In response to the final, approved version of the Volcker Rule, Demos Senior Fellow Wallace Turbeville, aformer investment banker and the author of Demos' recent Volcker Rule explainer and The Detroit Bankruptcy report, released the following statement:
In November, Congress failed to renew the 2009 stimulus provision allocating additional funds to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This removed a much-needed $5 billion from an already underfunded public program tasked with keeping 47 million Americans from going hungry.
