How the Great Recession Has Changed Life in America | Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project

As the various candidates for the office of President of the United States define themselves and throw their hat in the ring, we should probably take a good look at their position on the American workforce and the American workplace. Especially important will be how economic policy affects these two important areas of life–both the quality of life for most working families in the country and the quality of life at the community level as it relates to access to quality education and training for working families.

More via How the Great Recession Has Changed Life in America | Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project.

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Prison reform: An unlikely alliance of left and right | The Economist

How can we square the fact that we are the number one nation in the world in the number of people we put in prison, that an African American male is more likely to end up in jail in today’s America than he would have been under South Africa’s Apartheid regime?  According to the London Economist, China is a distant second in number of people incarcerated despite its significantly larger population.

This facts serve to put into perspective the real and urgent need to reform our “crime and punishment” system.  It is simply too expensive and the statistics clearly show that affects Americans from different communities in disproportionate fashion.

Historically, crime and punishment have been an ongoing challenge for all empires and for all leaders.  American is miserably failing in this regard and we can’t afford to continue down this path of wasting human life in a criminal justice system that is a revolving door with little accountability and without rational goals that serve society as a whole.

What will it take to get America to invest in its young in the areas of education, job training and re-training and, frankly, in a more robust and inclusive view of an America that invests in its most challenged urban and rural areas with a view to the future?  Prison reform could yield a significant downpayment on new more enlightened policies that could bring together both sides of the isle for the sake of millions of families and young people.

“ERIC HOLDER and Rick Perry (pictured) have little in common. America’s attorney-general is black, liberal and uses the word “community” a lot. The governor of Texas is white, conservative and says “God” a lot. Last month Mr Holder’s Justice Department sued Texas for allegedly trying to make it harder for blacks to vote. Last year Mr Perry ran to unseat Mr Holder’s boss, Barack Obama.

On one thing, however, the two men agree. On August 12th Mr Holder said: “Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law-enforcement reason.” He then unveiled reforms to reduce the number of people sent to America’s …”

MORE via Prison reform: An unlikely alliance of left and right | The Economist.

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A Rising Share of Young Adults Live in Their Parents’ Home — The Baby Boomers’ Boomies!

The post agrarian nuclear family, popularized by shows like Father Knows Best  in the 1950s and 60s, may not be sustainable in today’s economy.  Sociologists and social historians have long said that marriage and the Mom, Dad and the kids arrangement is quite recent.  In fact, it was not long ago that a significant percentage of siblings did not marry at all.  In today’s America, it is getting increasingly difficult to go to college, buy a home and settle down and raise a family.  Today’s young people are struggling to get jobs and parents are staying put in their homes well after retirement…  Perhaps it is the baby boomers leading these trends.  Ironically, just like they made noise for their elders and their parents in the 1960s, so too are their children today as they are crowding their nests and spending their life savings… Empty nest syndrome is being replaced with a new, perhaps more uncomfortable version of the extended family… At least extended at the bank as families struggle to face a  new reality in an economy that undervalues education and yields few jobs and opportunities for the baby boomers “boomies” …

“In 2012, 36% of the nation’s young adults ages 18 to 31—the so-called Millennial generation—were living in their parents’ home, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. This is the highest share in at least four decades and represents a slow but steady increase over the 32% of their same-aged counterparts who were living at home prior to the Great Recession in 2007 and the 34% doing so when it officially ended in 2009.

A record total of 21.6 million Millennials lived in their parents’ home in 2012, up from 18.5 million of their same aged counterparts in 2007. Of these, at least a third and perhaps as many as half are college students. (In the census data used for this analysis, college students who live in dormitories during the academic year are counted as living with their parents).

Younger Millennials (ages 18 to 24) are much more likely than older ones (ages 25 to 31) to be living with their parents—56% versus 16%. Since the onset of the 2007-2009 recession, both age groups have experienced a rise in this living arrangement.”

via A Rising Share of Young Adults Live in Their Parents’ Home | Pew Social & Demographic Trends.

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Suburbs and the New Geography of Poverty | Demos

Decades after Michael Harrington’s work on poverty, the issue of what causes poverty and what can be done about it continues to be a controversial and confused one.

The work poverty has come to mean many things to many people and in important ways it has changed for people who do not look nor live like traditionally poor people lived and looked…

“Concentrated poverty has a new address, and this time it’s not in the inner city. For many Americans, moving to a house in the …”via Suburbs and the New Geography of Poverty | Demos.

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The Policy ThinkShop on Facebook: How do you think Healthcare Reform is working in New Jersey? What about the poorest and most vulnerable in these time of change?

New Jersey is reorganizing its healthcare system, including urban hospital that are vital to New Jersey’s poorest and most vulnerable. What do you think?

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Pew Research Center | Nonpartisan, non-advocacy public opinion polling and demographic research

U.S. POLITICSFEB. 6, 2013

Public Hearing Better News About Housing and Financial Markets

The good news about housing and financial markets is counterbalanced by persistently negative views of news about gas prices and prices for food and consumer goods.

via Pew Research Center | Nonpartisan, non-advocacy public opinion polling and demographic research.

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Saying No to College – NYTimes.com

Family incomes, markets and job prospects have all been crushed by over a decade of economic angst and dreary fiscal outlooks … This is now affecting the opportunity for families to send their kids to college and also dampening the desire of ambitious bright kids to stick it out in college …

The NYTs highlights the “Zuckerberg and Gates” dropout phenomena as the down economy pushes kids out of college early in their pursuit of  entreprenurial success and big bucks!

 

“BENJAMIN GOERING does not look like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, talk like him or inspire the same controversy. But he does apparently think …”

via Saying No to College – NYTimes.com.

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State of denial | The Economist The Policy ThinkShop Proposes that there is now a “NEW AMERICAN ELECTORATE”

The London Economist provides some sober analysis on the Republican meltdown that represents the Presidential Election of 2012.  The Republican disconnect between the young, women and Latinos could spell a new era of demographic consequences that are now clearly irreversible and that will mandate Republican philosophical change that may not be possible for another generation.  Millionaire money, gerrymandering and voter suppression is clearly not enough to the blossoming diversity and generational succession that is now apparent in the “NEW AMERICAN ELECTORATE.”

“FOR conservatives casting about for comfort, there are plenty of plausible reasons to dismiss talk of a crisis. Mitt Romney could have run a better campaign. He reacted slowly when Barack Obama defined him as a heartless plutocrat, and flip-flopped on policies so frequently that even campaign allies struggled to keep …”

 

This Economist article is only one soul-searching conservative attempt to explain the current state of the Republican mind.  It may take Conservatives, Tea Party stalwarts and Right Wingers another decade to figure it out.  By then, the NEW AMERICAN ELECTORATE may have moved on.  America is moving forward right past the right, its billionaires and its antiquated vision of “a real america”.

More via Lexington: State of denial | The Economist.

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President Obama’s Success – NYTimes.com

NYTs weighs in on how the Country has spoken demanding

• jobs, spreading the tax burden and rejecting politics of deceit

“President Obama’s dramatic re-election victory was not a sign that a fractured nation had finally come together on Election Day. But it was a strong endorsement of …”

via President Obama’s Success – NYTimes.com.

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Obama Wins New Term as Electoral Advantage Holds – NYTimes.com

America’s has chosen to stay on the path to fairness, embracing diversity and the working person … The 47% wins!

The New York Times reports Obama victory as “Mr. Etch a Sketch” goes down hard and for ever!

Mitt Catches Bad Loss … America’s 47% wins big!

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“Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected president of the United States on Tuesday, overcoming powerful economic headwinds, a lock-step resistance to his agenda by Republicans in Congress and an unprecedented torrent of advertising as the nation voted to give him a second …”

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White working-class voters: Fed up with everyone | The Economist

The Economist Magazine, with its European point of view, takes a “Toquevillian” peek in at the US 2012 election through the experience of Midwest American working class eyes…

“AT THE bar at Simeri’s Old Town Tap, a watering hole on the outskirts of South Bend, a down-on-its-luck manufacturing town, conversation turns to Bill Clinton. One regular, appalled by the prospect of voting for either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, is thinking of …”

via White working-class voters: Fed up with everyone | The Economist.

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Daily Number: Education a Top Issue for Most Latino Voters – Pew Research Center

Education, jobs and the economy, and health care are the top issues for Latinos in this year’s presidential campaign. A majority (55%) of Latino registered voters say the issue of education is “extremely important” to them personally. This is followed closely by jobs and the economy (54%) and health care (50%).

Since 2008, these three issues have ranked highly for Hispanic registered voters, though their relative rankings have changed. In 2011, jobs ranked at the top, followed by education and health care. In 2010, education ranked at the top, followed by jobs and health care. In 2008, as well, education ranked at the top, this time followed by the cost of living, health care and jobs.

via Daily Number: Education a Top Issue for Most Latino Voters – Pew Research Center.

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