Comments of the Asset Building Program to the House Ways and Means...
April 15, 2013The House Ways and Means Committee created a series of working groups to investigate problems with the tax code and solicit suggestions for reform. The Asset Building Program at the New...
View ArticleEvent Summary: Jackpot: Using Lotteries to Promote Personal Savings
Yesterday we hosted an event along with our partners at the Doorways to Dreams Fund (D2DFund) to examine the potential of lottery-style programs and products to promote personal savings. The idea of...
View ArticlePrize-Linked Savings 101
After our event on "prize-linked savings" yesterday, I sat down with Joanna Smith-Ramani of D2D and recorded a short podcast focused on the basics. What are prize-linked savings? Where did the idea...
View ArticleAsset Building News Week, April 15-19
The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This...
View ArticleThe Other Shoe Drops on Payday Lenders
As it turns out, consumer advocates might have underestimated the impact of payday loans on consumers. We have written pretty extensively about the debt trap or cycle of borrowing that short-term,...
View ArticleThe Rise of the Dynamic Welfare State
Earlier this month, President Obama released his budget for the next fiscal year. The budget can be thought of as a large set of “asks” for Congress to consider, including funding levels for existing...
View ArticleCan Mobile-Enabled Savings Products Bridge the Youth Financial Services Gap?
Editor's note: This post was authored by Julia Arnold, a Research Fellow with the Global Assets Project, and originally appeared on the Center for Financial Inclusion's blog. Many of the challenges to...
View ArticleCalifornia's Innovative Response to the Coming Retirement Security Crisis
It's hardly news that traditional pensions have almost disappeared from the private workforce, personal savings are low, and Social Security benefits face political and actuarial threats. But the story...
View ArticleTax Reform: The Options
As part of their effort to reform the tax code, the House Ways and Means Committee created a series of working groups and put out a call for public comment on tax reform ideas. Appropriately enough,...
View ArticlePutting the Kibosh on Using Credit Checks in Hiring Decisions
Update 5/22/13: The original version of this post incorrectly used the term "credit score"in several places where "credit check" or "credit history" would have been more appropriate and accurate. The...
View ArticleAsset Building News Week, May 13-17
The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This...
View Article$aveNYC Evaluation: People Save, Lives Improved, More Please
What if I told you that very poor people, living in the most expensive city in America in the aftermath of a massive economic collapse, were challenged to save $500 and not touch it for a year with the...
View ArticlePoverty is on the Move, but Services Stay Put
As any parent will tell you, mobility is a game-changer. Once junior can crawl, gone are the days of leaving him on his playmat while you step away, however briefly, and expect him to be in the same...
View ArticleAn Assets Agenda for the States
Policy Ideas and Recent Developments May 23, 2013 Karen Harris, Illinois Asset Building Group Click here to download "An Assets Agenda for the States"Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and a “hard...
View ArticleGuest Blog Post: States Fail to Make the Grade When Providing Economic Security
Editor's Note: This blog post is written by Matt Unrath, Director of National Projects at Wider Opportunities for Women. Matt oversees WOW’s national projects—The Family Economic Security Project, the...
View ArticleAn Assets Agenda for the States
Policy Ideas and Recent Developments Karen Harris, Illinois Asset Building Group May 31, 2013"An Assets Agenda for the States" examines current state asset building efforts with an eye toward...
View ArticleBoosting Economic Mobility Through Prize-Linked Savings
That's the title and subject of a new report from the Heritage Foundation, written by Stuart Butler, David John, and Sean Rust. The report takes a look at the status of savings in the US, impediments...
View ArticleAmericans Struggle to Rebuild Wealth, Savings
Americans have rebuilt only 45 percent of the wealth they lost in the Great Recession, according to the Washington Post and a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. "After the Fall"...
View ArticleFinancial Inclusion and Access within the Latino Immigrant Community
The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) hosted an event today to release “Latino Financial Access and Inclusion," a new report that examines the relationship between comprehensive immigration reform and...
View ArticleAsset Building News Week, June 4-7
The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This...
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