Steps to offering a financial lifeline

There are many reasons why someone might be struggling financially. Job loss, health challenges, or a sudden financial emergency could cause hardship, preventing someone from staying afloat. In times like these, it’s not uncommon for someone to ask for help from friends or family. Before agreeing to help, make sure you will not be putting your own financial future at risk.



Research study: Crypto assets 2022

This study by the Ontario Securities Commission examines Canadians’ crypto ownership and knowledge. It found 13% of Canadians currently own crypto assets or crypto funds. The study also found most Canadians did not have a working knowledge of the practical, legal and regulatory dimensions of crypto assets. Crypto assets were believed to play a key role in the financial system by 38% of those surveyed. The study provides a profile of crypto owners, their reasons for purchasing crypto assets or crypto funds, the role of financial advice, impact of advertising, and the experience of crypto owners with crypto trading platforms. 



101 solutions for inclusive wealth building

Having wealth, or a family’s assets minus their debts, is important not just for the rich— everyone needs wealth to thrive. Yet building the amount of wealth needed to thrive is a major challenge. Nearly 13 million U.S. households have negative net worth. Millions more are low wealth; they do not have the assets or liquidity needed to maintain financial stability and invest in themselves in the present, nor are they on track to accumulate the amount of wealth they will need to have financial security in retirement.
Together, these groups represent at least half of all U.S. households.

This report examines what it will take to create truly shared prosperity in the United States. It is focused on solutions that would grow the wealth of households in the bottom half of the wealth distribution, and it explores reparative approaches to building the wealth of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC).



Let’s talk money- seniors edition

Open, honest conversations about money are one of the keys to building a healthy relationship with your family, across the generations.

With a little preparation, talking about financial matters can help build trust, deepen connections, relieve stress and lead to greater peace of mind.

Yet for many people, these conversations can be difficult. In some families, money is just not something you talk about. The same applies to wills, inheritances, senior living, end-of-life care and many more topics that matter most to seniors.

Let's Talk About Money: Seniors' Edition -- wants to help you change that. There are tips to help parents talk with adult children and tips for adult children to have meaningful money conversations their parents.

The most important thing is to have these conversations early, before there’s a crisis. So let's start talking.



Asset resilience of Canadians, 2019

Canadians were more asset resilient just prior to the pandemic than they were at the turn of the millennium. That resilience continues to be tested as we enter the second year of the pandemic.

For the purposes of this article, a household is asset resilient when it has liquid assets that are at least equal to the after-tax, low-income measure (LIM-AT) for three months.

To be deemed asset resilient in 2019, a person living alone would require liquid assets of approximately $6,000. A household of four would require $12,000 or $3,000 per person to meet the minimum LIM-AT threshold for three months.

Recent Statistics Canada data have shown that savings rose sharply during the pandemic, despite the economic upheaval, and that those in the lower income quintiles have seen their income rise as a result of government support programs, such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).

Although the data in this release predate the pandemic, they provide an important benchmark to monitor the economic well-being of Canadian households during a time of unprecedented change.



Cross Canada Check-up (updated March 2021)

Canada ranks consistently as one of the best places to live in the world and one of the wealthiest. When it comes to looking at the financial health of Canadian households, however, we are often forced to rely on incomplete measures, like income alone, or aggregate national statistics that tell us little about the distribution of financial health and vulnerability in our neighbourhoods, communities or provinces/territories.

The purpose of this report is to examine the financial heath and vulnerability of Canadian households in different provinces and territories using a new composite index of household financial health, the Neighbourhood Financial Health Index or NFHI.

This report is an update of Cross Canada Check-up: Provincial/territorial findings from Canada's Neighbourhood Financial Health Index published in 2018. 
 
Update July 22, 2022: Please note that the Neighbourhood Financial Health Index is no longer available



Making Safety Affordable: Intimate Partner Violence is an Asset-Building Issue

This brief explores three existing unmet needs that contribute to survivors’ inability to build wealth: money, tailored asset-building support, and safe and responsive banking and credit services. Within each identified need, specific issues facing survivors, strategic actions in response to those issues, as well as innovative ideas and existing promising practices to help funders take action to prioritize survivor wealth are discussed.



Lifting the Weight: Consumer Debt Solutions Framework

Aspen Financial Security Program’s the Expanding Prosperity Impact Collaborative (EPIC) has identified seven specific consumer debt problems that result in decreased financial insecurity and well-being. Four of the identified problems are general to consumer debt: households’ lack of savings or financial cushion, restricted access to existing high-quality credit for specific groups of consumers, exposure to harmful loan terms and features, and detrimental delinquency, default, and collections practices. The other three problems relate to structural features of three specific types of debt: student loans, medical debt, and government fines and fees.

This report presents a solutions framework to address all seven of these problems. The framework includes setting one or more tangible goals to achieve for each problem, and, for each goal, the solutions different sectors (financial services providers, governments, non-profits, employers, educational or medical institutions) can pursue.



Dimensions of Poverty Hub

The Dimensions of Poverty Hub, sponsored by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), enables Canadians to track progress on poverty reduction. The updates as of September 2020 include poverty statistics based upon the new 2018-base Market Basket Measure (MBM).