Search Demos.org

America used to be a nation that made things. Walmart – the nation’s largest employer and one of our most profitable corporations – played a key role in why we no longer do.

In recent months, I've been scratching my head about how conservatives could turn so vehemently against the individual mandate when it tracks with one of their most sacred philosophical principles -- namely, that there should be no free lunch and people should take care of themselves. 

The personal responsibility argument was made by the Heritage Foundation in initially advancing the individual mandate -- and it was the argument that Mitt Romney has used in the past, too. As Romney wrote in a 2009 USA Today op-ed:

Wal-Mart has been the target of union campaigns for years. Why? Because Wal-Mart is the biggest fucking retailer in the world, and the most famous anti-union company in America. It makes sense for both practical and symbolic reasons. In L.A. right now, unions and worker advocates are trying to stop the construction of a new Wal-Mart in the city's Chinatown district. But Wal-Mart has an ally in the fight: the Wall Street Journal.

The Supreme Court's ruling on the healthcare mandate was bittersweet. The Affordable Care Act's greatest virtue was the expansion of Medicaid to include all persons under 133 percent of the poverty line. That meant that every family of four earning less than roughly $31,000 would be covered; that amounted to between 16 and 18 million new enrollees and almost half of all the people to be newly insured by the ACA. But on Thursday, the highest Court determined that the "forced" expansion (states who failed to comply faced losing all their Medicaid funding) was unconstitutional.

Just a few weeks after news came that Governor Cuomo was considering allowing limited fracking, emails were uncovered that show just how closely the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) works with the fracking industry.

A two-income American family with an average income that dutifully invests in a 401(k) plan using typical strategies will lose $155,000 – or about 30 percent of what they should have saved for retirement -- to Wall Street fees, according to a study by an economic justice advocacy organization. 

New York – Today, in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act, Miles Rapoport, President of Demos and The American Prospect, released the following statement:

The Supreme Court’s decision is in. With the Affordable Care Act mostly intact, tens of millions of uninsured Americans will gain coverage. Senior citizens will get billions of dollars of prescription drug benefits. Everyone with insurance will get preventive services at no cost.

(Flickr/Wallyg)

For the first time in nearly 100 years, cities are growing faster than the suburbs. That is the finding of new Census data, released today.

Anne Marie Slaughter (Flickr/poptech)

Why does one person’s take on an enduring, omnipresent issue sometimes explode through the media din?

It is weird how vehemently conservatives have attacked the individual mandate -- and are still attacking it now, after their erstwhile hero, Justice Roberts, said it could stand.

The mandate is a quintessential conservative idea, which explains why it emerged from the Heritage Foundation. A central tenet of conservative thinking is that government -- and society broadly -- shouldn't encourage free loading or coddle free riders.

Most of us with 401(k) plans watched in horror as our retirement savings plummeted in the stock market crash of 2008. That year, the average 401(k) balance dropped by a third, forcing older Americans to delay retirement or cut back on spending. Since then, as the market rebounded, some of our savings have recovered in fits and starts.

On Monday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling which upholds a lower court ruling, and area returning citizens are pleased by the court's ruling.

Supreme Court Justices agreed with Maryland's “No Representation Without Population Act” in a summary disposition which means meaning the Justices based their ruling on existing briefs and did not engage in oral arguments. A lower court ruled that in the case of Fletcher v. Lamone, Maryland officials cannot count a prisoner's incarceration address, and must count their last known home of residence.

The First Amendment was never intended as a tool for the wealthy to dominate our political process.

(Flickr/Rennette Stowe)

(Flickr/John-Morgan)