Weathering the storms: modernizing the U.S. benefits system to support household financial resilience

For most households in America, financial shocks are inevitable. The car will break down. The house will need a repair. A key earner for a household will be laid off. These shocks can be devastating to household finances. And while the COVID-19 pandemic, which we are still recovering from, was a once-in-a-generation economic and health shock for households and our economy, we also know that it is just one example of the uncertainty and volatility of the world we now live in. When public and private benefits—such as unemployment insurance and paid sick leave—are not accessible and not designed or delivered in a timely manner to effectively support families in weathering financial shocks, families suffer. 

To effectively modernize our benefits system to help people weather financial shocks—both small and large— requires an evidence-based framework focused on what households need to be financially resilient and on opportunities for benefit leaders to address those needs. This paper lays out the framework by: 

  1. Providing the evidence for how households experience financial shocks and how financial resilience can mitigate the hardship caused by those shocks;
  2. Sharing a framework of the four functions benefits play to support resilience and the role of specific public and private benefits, to demonstrate to benefit leaders how their work contributes to household financial resilience; and
  3. Highlighting opportunities for action to improve the accessibility, sufficiency, interoperability, and delivery of benefits, including examples of how benefit leaders are already modernizing benefits to support resilience. 



The Differential Impact of the Pandemic and Recession on Family Finances

This report summarizes the results of a follow-up survey with nineteen low- and modest-middle income Winnipeggers, undertaken in June through September 2020. These respondents were drawn from the 29 Canadian Financial Diaries (CFD) participants who completed a year-long diary in 2019. The results of the survey illustrate that low- and moderate-income earners are feeling stressed with increased expenses and uncertainty about future economic stability.

Canadians’ Well-being in Year One of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Given the scope and the diversity of the reports and studies that examined the impacts of the pandemic on well-being, it can be challenging to absorb and understand all the ways in which quality of life has been affected by COVID-19. The well-being literature offers an approach that may help.

This report brings together diverse findings that illuminate changes in quality of life since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and provides valuable insights through examining these results through a well-being lens. Several widely used frameworks exist to describe the dimensions of well-being, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Framework for Measuring Well-Being and Progress.



Recordkeepers’ Role in Providing Emergency Savings for an Inclusive Recovery

In this webinar, Commonwealth in partnership with DCIIA Retirement Research Center (RRC) and SPARK Institute present findings from our new research about drivers and considerations of recordkeeper-provided emergency savings and host a discussion with industry experts.

Change Matters Volume 2: Assets

This is the second brief in a new series from The Financial Clinic. Change Matters leverages the data gathered through our revolutionary financial coaching platform, Change Machine, alongside the voices, wisdom, and lived experiences of Change Machine customers. We hope that our action oriented analysis will lead to positive social change. We believe we have a responsibility to ask the right questions, to use our data for good, and to inspire products, practice, and policy innovations that centralize the needs of the working-poor in building economic mobility.



Achieving financial resilience in the face of financial setbacks

The Asset Funders Network (AFN) developed this primer to inform community-based strategies that can help economically-vulnerable families to better manage financial setbacks, shortfalls, and shocks. The goal of this brief is to provide a common understanding and language for funders and financial capability programs as part of a financial emergency toolkit.



Measuring financial health: What policymakers need to know

This report provides an overview of financial health and the policy responses around the world. Based on this, and the key questions of whether financial health measure more than income and if financial inclusion supports financial health, the report offers recommendations to policy makers on strategies for measuring the financial health of their population.



Understanding the Pathways to Financial Well-Being

The National Financial Well-Being Survey Report is the second report in a series from the Understanding the Pathways to Financial Well-Being project. 

In order to measure and study the factors that support consumer financial well-being, in 2015, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (the Bureau) contracted with Abt Associates to field a large, national survey to collect information on the financial well-being of U.S. adults. The present report uses data collected from that survey to answer a series of questions on the relationship among financial well-being and four key factors: objective financial situation, financial behavior, financial skill, and financial knowledge. In this study, we aim to enhance understanding of financial well-being and the factors that may support it by exploring these relationships.



Economic and Fiscal Snapshot 2020

The COVID-19 crisis is a public health crisis and an economic crisis. The Economic and Fiscal Snapshot 2020 lays out the steps Canada is taking to stabilize the economy and protect the health and economic well-being of Canadians and businesses across the country.



Economic volatility in childhood and subsequent adolescent mental health problems: a longitudinal population based study of adolescents

This research paper investigates the association between the patterns of duration, timing and sequencing of exposure to low family income during childhood, and symptoms of mental health problems in adolescence.



Helping Families Save to Withstand Emergencies

This brief identifies policy solutions to help American families build savings to withstand emergencies that threaten their financial stability.



Saving for Now and Saving for Later: Rainy Day Savings Accounts to Boost Low-Wage Workers’ Financial Security

This report discusses the vulnerability of millions of people in the US who lack adequate emergency savings. A workplace-based solution—rainy day savings accounts— can potentially help workers with low savings weather financial shocks.



Tax Time: An opportunity to Start Small and Save Up

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s continuing effort to encourage saving at tax time is now part of a larger Bureau initiative to support people in building liquid savings. The new initiative is called Start Small, Save Up. The vision for Start Small, Save Up is to increase people’s financial well-being through education, partnerships, research, and policy or regulatory improvements that increase people's opportunities to save and empower them to realize their personal savings goals.

This paper provides a description of how having liquid savings contributes to people’s financial stability and resiliency, and the unique opportunity that tax time offers to begin saving for the short and longer term. Starting to save or continuing to save when receiving a tax refund may lead to longer term financial well-being.



The Monthly Stress-Test on Family Finances

Report on the Economic Well-being of US Households in 2015

Saving for financial shocks and emergencies

How FinTech for Good Can Create Financial Health

Encouraging Savings for Public Benefit Recipients, a Win for Families and States

The Precarious State of Family Balance Sheets

Financially fragile households: Evidence and implications

Thriving Residents, Thriving Cities: Family Financial Security Matters for Cities

EPIC Income Volatility Survey Findings

The Potential for Savings Accounts to Protect Young Adult Households from Unsecured Debt in Periods of Macroeconomic Stability and Decline