Current Asset Building Articles 2010-2011
The Asset Funders Network shares successful strategies and approaches that have helped low-income Americans save for home ownership, higher education, small business and long-term investment opportunities. The following articles support that purpose.
June 2011
New America Foundation - The Assets Report 2011
The Brookings Institution - Tempting Fate: The Federal Budget Outlook
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May 2011
New America Foundation - Homeownership and Individual Development Accounts: An Assessment of Recent Research
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April 2011
Paying More for the America Dream V: The Persistence and Evolution of the Dual Mortgage Market
California Reinvestment Coalition
Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina
Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance
Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project
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February 2011
Building Better Bank Ons: Top 10 Lessons From Bank On San Francisco
America's Congressional Black Caucus: Commission on Budget Deficit, Economic Crisis and Wealth Creation Report
New Toolkit on Using Federal Funds for Integrated Service
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January 2011
CFED - Building Economic Security in America's Cities: New Municipal Strategies for Asset Building and Financial Empowerment
Center for Social Development 2011 Working Papers- Taking Stock of Ten Years of Research on the Relationship between Assets and Children's Educational Outcomes: Implications for Theory, Policy and Intervention
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June 2010
Women’s Initiative for Self Employment - Job Creation Through Microenterprise
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November 2010
Child Support Basics - Information for Financial Education and Asset Development Programs
Low-Income Fathers and Child Support Debt
A PRIMER FOR FINANCIAL LITERACY
AND FATHERHOOD SERVICE PROVIDERS
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October 2010
Brookings - Financial Literacy: What Works? How Could It Be More Effective?
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September 2010
CFED: A New Framework for Achieving Household Financial Security
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August 2010
Social Security at 75: A Cornerstone of America's Future
National Academy of Social Insurance
August 14th was the 75th Anniversary of the act establishing the Social Security program, which continues to provide an economic lifeline for millions of people. Since the first benefit was paid 70 years ago and through many economic ups and down, the Social Security program has never missed a payment. Please join us in celebrating the 75th Anniversary of this cornerstone of American economic security. Happy Birthday Social Security!
Video from National Academy of Social Insurance.
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June 2010
The Center for Responsible Lending
Foreclosures by Race and Ethnicity: The Demographics of a Crisis
Our new research shows that the foreclosure crisis is not over, and runaway foreclosures continue to drain hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth from families, hitting communities of color the hardest.
An estimated 2.5 million foreclosures were completed from 2007 - 2009, and an estimated 5.7 additional ones are imminent. An estimated 17% of Latino homeowners and 11% of African-American homeowners have already lost their home to foreclosure or are now at imminent risk. The great majority of homes lost were owner occupied, as are those at imminent risk of being lost.
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May 2010
1. Center for Family Policy & Practice
Comprehensive Advocacy for Low-Income African American Men and Their Communities
Comprehensive Advocacy for Low-Income African American Men and Their Communities calls for the provision of holistic services and the dismantling of structural barriers so that African American men and women can make their full and desired contributions to their families and communities. www.cffpp.org
2. Economic Mobility Project, An Initiative of the Pew Charitable Trust
Renewing the American Dream: A Road Map to Enhancing Economic Mobility in America
Drawing on the expertise of Pew's Economic Mobility Project (EMP), its ideologically diverse group of principals, and three years of research (with more to come), we have compiled a series of policy ideas in the report Renewing the American Dream: A Road Map to Enhancing Economic Mobility in America.
Comprised of more than 22 policy ideas, the breadth of topics covered in the road map demonstrates that there is no "silver bullet" to improve economic mobility in America. Throughout one's life, individuals make choices and experience institutions, such as schools and labor markets, that determine future economic outcomes.
Renewing the American Dream includes practical recommendations to make the Dream of upward mobility a reality for generations to come, including the need for a "portfolio shift" in the federal government's priorities in two ways:
Encourage policies and promote activities that our research shows are important in order for Americans to experience upward mobility; andReorient the existing $750 billion "mobility budget" to be more targeted towards programs for low- and moderate-income Americans, those least likely to experience economic mobility.
3. Economic Mobility Project, An Initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts
Neighborhoods and the Black-White Mobility Gap
One of the most powerful findings of the Economic Mobility Project's research to date has been the striking mobility gap between blacks and whites in America. Over a generation, white children are more likely than blacks to experience upward mobility in adulthood, while black children are more likely than whites to experience downward mobility. This report, authored by New York University sociologist, Patrick Sharkey, finds that growing up in a high-poverty neighborhood increases the risk of experiencing downward mobility and explains a sizable portion of the black-white downward mobility gap. These data suggest that public policy efforts that focus on investing in disadvantaged neighborhoods and reducing the concentration of poverty could enhance economic mobility for the children in those neighborhoods.
4. The Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University
New Study Finds Racial Wealth Gap Quadrupled
Living Longer on Less Report #3
The Institute on Assets and Social Policy and Demos are pleased to bring their newest report in the "Living Longer on Less" series to your attention. This report demonstrates the great challenges that seniors of colors face during their retirement years.
Based on the Senior Financial Stability Index (SFSI) described in our previous reports, 91% of both African American and Latino seniors face long-term financial vulnerabilities. The major sources of economic risk include the lack of sufficient financial assets, and expenses for housing and health care.
The report discusses a number of policies that need to address decreasing incomes and escalating costs for seniors. It calls for strengthening social security and pension provisions, enhancing asset building opportunities through the life course, promoting flexible employment arrangements for seniors, addressing the Medicare crisis as part of the overall healthcare crisis, and instituting long-term care insurance for all. These actions are especially critical to affirm our social contract not only with our current elderly population, but for all of us who expect to retire one day with security, dignity, and respect in older age.
5. Social Security Is an Anti-Poverty Program
A new post in Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity features the often underestimated role of Social Security in mitigating the risk of poverty for vulnerable Americans. Virginia Reno and Ben Veghte of National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI)I report how Social Security has helped prevent poverty among working families who have experienced the death or disability of breadwinners and how the program has been instrumental in reducing poverty among older Americans, especially women who are more likely to be poor or near poor in old age. Visit Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity to read more.
The Democracy Collaborative has released a new study entitled Rebuilding America's Communities: A Comprehensive Community Wealth Building Federal Policy Proposal. The policy package outlines a series of federal initiatives that could greatly expand and strengthen community wealth building and asset creation strategies nationwide. The Cooperative Business Journal, a publication of the National Cooperative Business Association, published a short article on the study.
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March/February 2010
EARN White Paper: Advancing Financial Coaching for Low-Income Populations
EARN’s white paper on financial coaching candidly shares midstream learnings from the experiment EARN has underway in testing whether coaching is a cost effective tool in creating prosperity.
EARN Research Brief: Mobile Financial Services for the Underbanked in the U.S.
EARN’s mobile brief offers surprising results from surveys and focus groups with over 200 EARN Savers, about attitudes toward the use of mobile technology to conduct financial transactions.
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January 2010
EARN Research Brief: What Motivates Low Income Earners to Save Money?
EARN’s Savings study offers initial results from a groundbreaking ongoing qualitative research protocol that explores behavioral shifts that result from experiences with sustained savings among low income earners.
New America Foundation Power Point Presentation: The Next Progressive Era
Phil Longman & Ray Boshara (New America Foundation) presented this power point at Book Talk, Washington University in St. Louis on January 27, 2010.