REPORT: Debt Collectors Profit From Aggressive Tactics

For Immediate Release
January 26, 2016
Contact: Kathy Mulady, (206) 992-8787
kathy@allianceforajustsociety.org
REPORT PROFILES COMPANIES WITH THE MOST COMPLAINTS ABOUT
ABUSIVE AND DECEPTIVE DEBT COLLECTION TACTICS

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should write strong rules to protect
consumers from abusive collection practices

SEATTLE – Companies engaging in debt collection activities use abusive and deceptive practices that include harassing people for debts not owed, threatening illegal actions, calling people at work, and contacting their employers and neighbors.

These are among the findings of a new report, Unfair, Deceptive & Abusive: Debt Collectors Profit from Aggressive Tactics, released today by the Alliance for a Just Society. Researchers analyzed 75,000 consumer complaints filed during the last two years with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.Continue reading “REPORT: Debt Collectors Profit From Aggressive Tactics”

Instead of Building Walls, Build an Economy That Works for All

The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will take up a case that challenges President Barack Obama’s executive actions that deferred the deportation of 5 million undocumented immigrants.

News coverage of this development naturally was dominated by the two words that are sure to make any news story go viral: “procedural battle.”

Okay, perhaps such a phrase doesn’t rise to the level of virality as the groundbreaking revelation that Kim Kardashian washes her hair twice a week. But that’s exactly what’s wrong with this system — with so much at stake for so many families, it is a shame that people aren’t paying more attention.Continue reading “Instead of Building Walls, Build an Economy That Works for All”

Promising Practice: Making Medicaid Part of the Welcome Home

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, many adults are now eligible for health care coverage, such as Medicaid, that had been closed to them before. Among these newly eligible adults are many people leaving prison — and Medicaid can make a big difference in helping them transition back home. This Promising Practice Policy Brief discusses options for states.

Promising Practice — Making Medicaid Part of the Welcome Home

Winning the Fight for $15 in 2016

Millions of low-paid Americans rang in 2016 with a raise, as a handful of state minimum wage increases went into effect on the first day of January.

Many of those raises are a barely noticeable 15 or 20 cents an hour — little comfort to people struggling to make ends meet. But workers in the cities and states that voted for more robust wages last year saw much more significant gains.

Minimum wage workers in Alaska, California, Massachusetts, and Nebraska, for example, are finding a dollar-an-hour increase in their paychecks. Workers in Hawaii are enjoying an extra $1.25 an hour. In Seattle, some workers at bigger companies are seeing a substantial $2 hourly increase as the city’s $15 minimum wage is phased in.Continue reading “Winning the Fight for $15 in 2016”

Today in Medicaid: Big Win in Louisiana

Today, Louisiana’s new governor, John Bel Edwards, made the most of his first full day in office.

Through an executive order, Gov. Edwards expanded Medicaid to about 300,000 uninsured Louisianans, many of whom will be eligible for health coverage for the first time. This move makes Louisiana the 31st state to extend the benefits of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to its lowest-income residents.

Edwards’ action marks a big win for community leaders in Louisiana – and the culmination of a long fight for health care justice.Continue reading “Today in Medicaid: Big Win in Louisiana”

It’s a Matter of Life and Death: Insurers Must Cover Language Services

A 14-year-old girl accompanies her Somali-speaking father to his medical appointment. Because the clinic doesn’t provide an interpreter, the girl has to inform her own father than he has been diagnosed with cancer. She remains his interpreter through eight years of treatment, sometimes hiding information to protect him from the bad news.

A group of Spanish-speaking farmworkers enters a pesticide-laden field and soon, sickened and vomiting, must rush to the hospital. No medical interpreters are provided, and one of the farmworkers must handle communications between her coworkers and health care providers – while she is suffering from her own symptoms.Continue reading “It’s a Matter of Life and Death: Insurers Must Cover Language Services”

Hate Has No Home Here / Hate Has No Business Here

msa-welcome_fb-share-welcome

The Alliance for a Just Society joins with Main Street Alliance and businesses all around the country who are standing up to racist and anti-Muslim rhetoric from political candidates and others in recent weeks. We reject collective punishment for individual acts and join other in saying “Hate has no business here” and “Hate has no home here.”

If you are a business owner, we encourage you to download the store sign letting people know All Are Welcome.

Continue reading “Hate Has No Home Here / Hate Has No Business Here”

Defending Planned Parenthood is Essential for the Whole Progressive Movement

(This opinion by LeeAnn Hall was originally published in Common Dreams)
Planned Parenthood is an easy target for rage and righteousness as we saw too plainly in the shootings in Colorado Springs late last month.
The ongoing conservative attack on Planned Parenthood funding depends on the same extreme rhetoric but, it’s also part of a broader trend, a strategy by the right to dismantle progressive infrastructure.
As destructive as we know right-wing operatives to be, we shouldn’t be surprised by their tactics – and we can’t allow ourselves to be divided or defeated by them, either.

Continue reading “Defending Planned Parenthood is Essential for the Whole Progressive Movement”

“Patchwork of Paychecks” Not Enough Jobs to Go Around

For Immediate Release
Dec. 8, 2015
Contact: Kathy Mulady
Communications director
kathy@allianceforajustsociety.org
(206) 992-8787

Patchwork of Paychecks

Only half of all job openings pay $15 an hour or more

It’s easy to tell a low-wage worker to “go get a better-paying job,” but the reality is there are nowhere near enough jobs that pay a living wage to go around. The occupations with the most job openings pay the least, and are often part-time.

New research by the Alliance for a Just Society released today shows that nationally there are seven job seekers for every job that pays at least $15 an hour. Only 54 percent of all job openings in the United States pay $15 an hour or more.Continue reading ““Patchwork of Paychecks” Not Enough Jobs to Go Around”