Lew Daly, senior fellow at Demos, a New York City-based public policy organization and author of God's Economy: Faith-Based Initiatives and the Caring State, praised the text as "a turning point for the church and particularly for the American church, because our nation and our society is both the epicenter of wealth and the epicenter of inequality.
Low-income voters in Missouri will see increased access to voter registration at Missouri public assistance offices as a result of a settlement agreement filed today in federal district court.
How widespread is credit card use among college students? How much are they in debt?
Pick your study.
According to a recent report from Student Monitor, a national syndicated market-research survey, 41 percent of college students have credit cards. Of them, 65 percent pay their entire bills every month. The average balance for those who don't is $452.
Columbus, Ohio — The League of Women Voters of Ohio, the League of Women Voters of Toledo-Lucas County and a dozen Ohio citizens reached a historic agreement with the State of Ohio to fix defects in the way Ohio conducts its elections. The League of Women Voters of Ohio will hold a press conference at 11 AM on Wednesday June 17, 2009 in the Ladies Gallery of the Ohio Statehouse to discuss details of the historic settlement agreement reached on the Ohio Elections System.
Employers look to cut costs, workers crave stability following market crash
Last fall's Wall Street meltdown, which erased half the value of some 401(k) retirement plans, has whipped up some of the fiercest crosswinds the plans have faced in their three decades of existence...
There's little agreement, however, on what a new retirement system should look like.
The bottom half of American households now controls less than 5 percent of our total net worth. Our republican founders could not have imagined a distribution of wealth so concentrated, nor a democracy so threatened by the rule of property.
Same Day Voter Registration (also known as Election Day Registration) permits eligible citizens to register and vote on the same day.
This fact sheet outlines some of the advantages of Same Day Registration, particularly its impact on voter turnout and its potential to ensure that every vote is properly counted, as well as a look at why we need Same Day Registration in America's "patchwork quilt of registration processes," and some success stories from states that have successfully utilized Same Day Registration in the 2008 presidential election.
After being on the outside for years, consumer lobbyists have gained power. Credit card rules were just the start of what they hope to do with it.
One area of regulatory reform that consumer advocates are particularly keen on is a new panel that would regulate mortgages and credit cards. The White House supports the idea of creating a so-called Financial Safety Products Commission, say consumer advocates and legislative aides.
Bob Herbert, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, received an honorary degree and spoke at Lawrence Universitys 2009 commencement.
Bob Herbert, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, received an honorary degree and spoke at Lawrence University's 2009 commencement. Here are his remarks.
It's a great privilege to be here and to be part of this wonderful day with you smiling, gorgeous, beautiful and brilliant graduates.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for Americans to achieve and sustain a middle-class life. The costs of homeownership, healthcare and a college education have soared, while incomes have stagnated. According to the Middle Class Security Index, a measure developed by Demos and the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University, fewer than one third of middle-income families were securely in the middle class in 2006, while a quarter were at high risk of falling out of the middle class.
But the direction of all my work, at bottom, is toward a new family economy, something I believe we can achieve only by fundamentally reformulating American politics around ideas of community wealth and family economic protection. This is a politics that leverages families and communities against market compulsion using the resources and regulatory power of a conservative or "subsidiary" welfare state-one that supports and protects traditional social structures but does not usurp their functions or alter their God-given purposes.
Today's 20-somethings are likely to be the first generation to not be better off than their parents." This is the first line of Economic State of Young America, a report released by Demos, a nonpartisan public policy think tank in New York City. And that's a troubling thesis for a generation that grew up being told they can do and be anything.
Yet these reforms still leave the burden of registration on the voter. The holy grail of registration reform remains universal registration. As the Election Protection coalition states in its report on the 2008 election, this would mean a registration system that was automatic, permanent (providing voters an opportunity to update their registration when they changed their name or address, for example), and allows for voters to correct any mistakes on election day.
Today headlines are filled with stories of middle-class families struggling to survive the current downturn. But the problems of middle-class families did not start with the recession.
Between 2000 and 2006, the number of middle-class families that lacked economic security grew from 19 to 23 million. Decline in assets, the rising cost of housing, and more families lacking health insurance depleted middle-class economic resources, leaving millions of families poorly positioned to weather the current recession.
When Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) in 1993, its goals were to "increase the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in elections for Federal office" and "protect the integrity of the electoral process." Yet, while most states created effective programs for mail-in and Department of Motor Vehicles-based registration processes, many neglected the NVRA's social service agency requirements (detailed in Section 7).
Caleb Gibson, federal affairs coordinator for Demos, a New York-based advocacy group on economic issues, is following the credit bill of rights’ progress and lobbying to include as many consumer protections in it as possible. Here’s his quick analysis of what is in the legislation that’s likely to stay and where the Senate and House will have to compromise to meet President Barack Obama’s Memorial Day deadline.
Dear Senator:
I urge you to support S. 414, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009, which is expected to come before the full Senate in the coming days. The legislation, introduced by Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT), would outlaw several abusive lending practices in the credit card market.
Today, children of wealthy parents are the ones who disproportionately attend college. Meanwhile, student financial assistance at the federal, state and university level has shifted away from a needs-based approach, leaving low-income and moderate-income students sitting at home.
Eighty-four percent of black households carry credit card debt, compared with 54% of white households, according to Demos, a public policy research organization. More than 90% of black families earning $10,000 to $24,999 a year had credit card debt.
