A new report by Professors Benjamin Page, Larry Bartels, and Jason Seawright presents the findings from one of the first studies of its kind—a study of the political clout and policy preferences of the wealth. Based on a pilot study of Chicagoans with a mean wealth of 14 million, "Democracy and the

If the speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives gets his way, residents of his state will soon notice a barrage of advertisements promoting the benefits of marriage.

The number of Americans age 60 and over in debt is alarming. A recent report by the AARP’s Public Policy Institute and the research organization Demos revealed that Americans over the age of 50 carried substantially more debt on credit cards — an average balance of $8,278 — than those under 50

The average retail sales job pays only $10.09 an hour, and some retail outlets—notably Walmart, the largest private employer in the world—pay as little as $8.00 per hour. But a handful of large retail companies have made generous compensation a key part of their business models, and it seems to be

Research has shown that someone with a poor credit history is not automatically a poor job prospect. Nevertheless, millions of Americans who have emerged from the recession with medical debts or a record of late payments are at risk of being denied jobs by companies that use credit histories to

One of the biggest problems with financial reform is having to discuss issues that most people find painfully boring. For instance, “derivatives.”

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan cadre of House lawmakers will move on legislation to deregulate Wall Street derivatives Wednesday, less than a week after Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) released a devastating report on the multibillion-dollar derivatives debacle at JPMorgan Chase.

When Vernardo and Claire Simmons-Valenzuela married, they imagined all the trappings of a middle-class life. Soon enough, they had kids. Claire finished a master's degree. They held jobs as an Army medic and a physician's assistant. They dreamed of next steps: owning a home, taking their first

A small study out of Yale School of Medicine caught the eye of some observers this week by raising an intriguing question: Do food stamp cuts lead to greater rates of HIV?

It’s too late for Tonisha Howard, the mother of three in Milwaukee who was fired for leaving work to be with her hospitalized two-year-old. And for Felix Trinidad, who was so afraid of losing his job at Golden Farm fruit store in Brooklyn that he didn’t take time off to go to the doctor—even after