Americans are starting to get that the U.S. needs to invest more resources in closing the racial equity gap as the nation grows more diverse.
A few decades ago, when U.S. was still overwhelming white, investing in racial minorities was a tough sell. Now, with the country only 63 percent white and heading fast to a majority-minority future, Americans increasingly understand how interdependent people of all races and ethnicities have become.
Six years after finishing college – with a degree in molecular and cellular biology – Sydney Gray works 18 hours a week as a cashier at a New Orleans farmers' market. Other times, she volunteers there to get free food.
"I can't even get a job waiting tables," says Ms. Gray, whose two previous part-time jobs ended when the employers folded. "When I apply for jobs, I'm competing against people with master's degrees and PhDs."
In the Public Interest (ITPI) recently released a shocking study on the alarming frequency of state private prison contracts that contain “occupancy quotas” that guarantee for-profit prison companies a steady stream of revenue even if prison populations decline.
We are in the midst of National Protect Your Identity Week, and credit reporting giant Experian is kicking off the festivities with some ID theft prevention tips, such as signing up for Experian’s own credit monitoring service at a cost of $14.95 a month.
Washington D.C. Mayor, Vincent C. Gray vetoed legislation demanding that large retailers pay a higher minimum wage, Sept.15. The announcement came on the heels of Wal-Mart threatening to cancel plans for new stores in the District of Columbia if the minimum wage was increased.
Mayor Gray denied that he vetoed the minimum wage because of Wal-Mart’s threat in his weekly radio address.
On September 15, the fifth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, progressives toasted a victory.
True, thanks to Congressional timidity, the biggest banks have only gotten bigger since the financial crisis five years ago, and the men (yes, mostly men) in charge of them are mostly still in charge. But Larry Summers, the architect of a good chunk of the deregulation that set the stage for the crisis in the first place, had withdrawn his name from consideration to be chair of the Federal Reserve, thanks to a populist uprising within the Democratic Party.
The crisis in Washington was always partly a story about money in politics, with big conservative donors pushing GOP lawmakers to an extreme stance with threats of primary challenges to those who didn't fall in line.
Now, even after the bid to defund Obamacare turned into an abject rout for Republicans, these same donors are making good on their threats.
Talk about your sore losers. After the Supreme Court struck down its attempt to make voter registration harder, Arizona is now attempting to implement a two-tier voting system that would require proof of citizenship in order to vote in state and local elections. Eligible voters who do not show proof of citizenship would only be allowed to vote in federal elections and not in state and local elections.
Three and a half years have passed since the afternoon when the stock markets went into a trillion-dollar free fall and just as suddenly reversed course, recovering 80 percent of that loss. It all happened in less than 45 minutes.
President Obama showed real spine in standing up to Tea Party hostage takers. Now he needs to draw on the same grit in the budget negotiations set to begin immediately as part of the deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.
Remember the days when conservatives deployed an endless series of wedge issues to splinter the Democratic coalition -- peeling white moderate voters off from liberals? Well, now the shoe's on the other foot.
The brewing civil war in the GOP between Tea Party extremists and more normal conservatives hit a boiling point over the past few weeks. But President Obama is poised to keep things boiling by pushing immigration reform to the top of Washington's agenda.
Suppose we think income redistribution is a good idea -- given near-record corporate profits at a time when wages for most workers are stagnant. There are two main ways to achieve this goal: We could make business pick up the tab directly by raising the minimum wage, making it easier for workers to form unions, and mandating more employee benefits, such as paid vacation time. Or, we could leave business alone, but give poorly paid workers public benefits like tax refunds, free health insurance, food assistance, and so on.
In 2005, Indiana passed a law requiring voters to present a government issued photo-ID before they would be allowed to vote. The law was challenged by voting rights advocates and was upheld by the Appellate Court and ultimately, the Supreme Court. The Appellate Court concluded that the burden placed on potential voters to show a photo-ID was outweighed by the state’s interest in reducing voter fraud.
A growing number of experts are arguing that the era of fast economic growth is over, at least for wealthy countries like the United States. If that's true, what does it mean for progressive politics?
I'll get to that question in a minute. But first consider the recent obituary for prosperity that Stephen King published in the New York Times, excerpting his new book, When the Money Runs Out: The End of Western Affluence.
Dunkin Donuts is getting a sweet deal. The company enjoyed $108.3 million in profits last year and compensated its CEO, Nigel Travis, to the tune of $1.9 million. Meanwhile, the public paid an estimated $274 million to feed, provide medical care, and subsidize the wages of their workforce.
Assuming some short-term deal emerges in Washington to avert a default, pending later budget talks, we all know what comes next: Another dead-end debate over taxes.
Why? Because if there's one issue that conservatives in Congress are even more implacable about than Obamacare it's taxes -- as in, no new taxes, ever.
Don't use that post-surgery fog as an excuse to ignore medical bills, even if you're still contesting them with your doctor or health insurer. Otherwise, your credit score will need to heal, too.
Medical debt is the most common type of collection account, representing nearly half of all reported collections. Almost 1 in 6 credit reports contain a medical debt collection, according to the Federal Reserve. And about 2 in 5 Americans reported a lower credit rating last year due to unpaid medical bills.
If you think that only banks and other traditional lenders get to gouge consumers with high interest rate loans, you're obviously behind on the evolution of American finance.
These days, just about any service provider can offer loans with what used to be criminally high interest rates. And that includes doctors and dentists, as the New York Times reports today.
