America’s demographic future is clear. Sometime around 2050, today’s racial and ethnic minorities will become the majority. This change will be one of the keys to future U.S. politics, but not necessarily in the way many pundits assume. Conventional wisdom presumes that a rising tide of minority votes will inevitably buoy the Democratic Party and sink Republicans. But this view overlooks telling realities. Most Asian-American and Latino adults remain ambivalent about the two political parties—and most currently do not vote. Despite the Obama campaign’s remarkable mobilization of first-time Latino and Asian-American voters, more than half of citizens in these rapidly growing segments of the electorate stayed home in recent elections. These are people who could be attracted to either party to sway electoral outcomes. more...

ObamaCare—the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010—includes new rules for insurance companies and expansions of health insurance coverage to include most Americans. State-level “health insurance exchanges” are crucial to making health reform work.

Health insurance exchanges are online marketplaces through which small businesses and people who do not get insurance through their employers can shop for affordable coverage. Often compared to websites like Travelocity, exchanges will allow consumers to compare the benefits and costs of different plans that meet minimum standards. People will also learn about the credits and subsidies they can receive to help them purchase a plan. Some 23 million Americans are slated to receive coverage through the exchanges by 2018.

All U.S. states are supposed to have their exchanges ready for open enrollment by October 2013. States have the option of creating their own health insurance exchange, setting one up in partnership with the federal government, or leaving it to the federal government to step in and do the job. The federal government has already given the states more than $2 billion in grants to plan and set up their exchanges. Deadlines have been pushed back, but all states will have to make final choices by the middle of February 2013. more...

Over the past two decades, a wage subsidy operating through the tax system called the Earned Income Tax Credit has developed into America’s biggest program specifically dedicated to lifting low-income citizens out of poverty. Many Republicans as well as Democrats support this tax subsidy, which goes to people who work for modest wages. The extra money helps to reduce deprivation among poor families with children—something liberals very much want to do—yet it is the opposite of the sort of no-strings-attached “handout” that conservatives often decry.

As a tool to reduce poverty, the Earned Income Tax credit has a lot going for it. But it also has important limitations. The credit can be improved, and other programs are needed to help poor people find and hold jobs. more...

Promoting civic engagement—constructive involvement in public life—involves fostering the motivation, skills, attitudes, and knowledge that people need to make meaningful contributions in their communities and the nation. When young people are provided with opportunities to become meaningfully involved in civic life, they can develop positive moral attitudes and become committed to helping others, and their self-esteem and academic achievement can also get a boost. Because young people are figuring out where they belong in society, early involvements can lay the basis for lifelong community participation. more...

“Almost half of all Americans pay no taxes!” That’s the claim bandied about in elections and overheated television talk-fests. It refers only to federal income taxes, from which various groups are exempt. But many other taxes are also collected at the federal, state, and local levels. When all kinds of taxes are added up, almost all Americans pay substantial amounts.  In fact, poor and middle-income people frequently fork over higher shares of their incomes than the very rich.

Federal Income and Payroll Taxes

The U.S. federal government relies on two big taxes collected from large numbers of Americans: the federal income tax and payroll taxes regularly deducted from wages and salaries to cover Social Security and Medicare benefits. Income and payroll taxes each contribute about 40% of federal revenues. Almost half of U.S. households currently do not owe federal income taxes, but over three-fifths of these “non-filers” are workers who contribute very substantial payroll taxes. For example, Americans making the lowest incomes pay nearly 9% of their wages in payroll taxes, about the same percentage as middle-income workers pay.

Only about 17% of American households pay neither income nor payroll taxes, because they are headed by people in special sub-groups:

• Elderly men and women, who previously contributed payroll taxes during their working lives, living on their Social Security benefits.
• Students or disabled individuals.
• Workers unable to find jobs. During the recent recession, the numbers of long-term unemployed people not filing income tax returns went up.
• Active-duty members of the U.S. military, who do not have to pay taxes on their combat pay and do not owe income tax after having been deployed. more...
  

Across the United States, tens of millions of residents have been arrested for violating marijuana laws. Arrests for offenses related to marijuana have increased dramatically since 1992. In 2010 alone, there were 853,838 arrests. Remarkably, more than half of all drug-related arrests that year involved marijuana alone. And almost nine of every ten people apprehended for marijuana offenses are charged with mere possession, not sales or distribution.

America’s efforts to reduce marijuana use over the past four decades have largely depended on arrest, imprisonment, incarceration—and, recently, the seizure of private property through asset forfeiture laws. The aim of such heavy legal firepower is to deter potential consumers, reduce marijuana use, limit availability, and increase the price of the drug. But existing research suggests that these goals have not been achieved. Instead, prices have declined and increasingly potent marijuana has become more readily available to growing numbers of users—even as arrests have climbed. Developments are not the same in all states and localities, but overall there is no clear indication that intensified enforcement decreases marijuana use. more...

Occupy Wall Street has put a public face on the backlash against growing inequality. As most Americans struggle to make ends meet, income and wealth at the very top continue to burgeon, in bad times as well as good. Although rag-tag protesters have been vilified, protests against the widest economic disparities in more than a century resonate with the wider public. For some time, the best research has documented shared American worries about inequality and broad support for steps to enhance opportunity. more...

Not long ago, the U.S. Census Bureau delivered very bad news about poverty in the United States. In 2010, 15.1% of Americans had incomes below the poverty line—set at $22,113 for a family of four—and the poverty rate for 2011 will be even higher. For older people who remember that poverty fell to 11.1% back in 1973, it may seem puzzling that things have gotten so much worse. Rising poverty is not a recent development either. Things were getting worse well before the Great Recession of December 2007 through June 2009. Given the way the U.S. economy works in our era, sluggish growth, high levels of joblessness, and persistently high poverty are likely to persist for years—unless our political leaders change course and do more to help the poor and near-poor. more...

Most Americans would be surprised to learn that the nation’s largest health care provider is not a private hospital network or an insurance company—it is the government-run Veterans Health Administration, popularly known as “the VA.” Every year more than 8.3 million veterans receive free or low-cost health care at hundreds of VA medical centers and outpatient clinics, parts of the most extensive integrated health care system in the country. The number of patients served has nearly doubled over the past fifteen years. Although VA patients are, on average, sicker and poorer than the average American, the system successfully delivers high-quality health care, even as it reins in costs. more...

In recent years, immigrants to the United States have stopped clustering near the border. Millions have spread out to work and build family lives in cities and towns across the United States. Of course, unauthorized immigrants have long had to cope with their disadvantaged legal status. But starting in 2005, many state and local governments—from Arizona and Texas to Georgia and Pennsylvania—passed their own tough laws, meant to drive unauthorized immigrants away. more...