In this video presentation Johnathan Weisstub from Common Wealth discusses recent improvements in senior Canadians' poverty levels due to benefits such as OAS and GIS, and the challenges that still remain in ensuring retirement security for modest-earning and low-income Canadians.  This...

In this video presentation Sunil Johal from the Mowat Centre explains how social policy in the 21st century could be redesigned to accommodate the changing nature of work and income in Canada.   This presentation was given at the Prosper Canada Policy Research Symposium on March 9, 2018. Read...

In this video presentation David Mitchell from the Aspen Institute explains strategies for mitigating and preventing income volatility at the household level.   This presentation was given at the Prosper Canada Policy Research Symposium on March 9, 2018. Read the slide deck that accompanies...

In this presentation Catherine Van Rompaey of Statistics Canada examines the data we have available to measure financial instability in Canada - household debt, savings, and credit.  This presentation was given at the Prosper Canada Policy Research Symposium on March 9, 2018. Read the slide deck...

In this video presentation Katherine Scott from the Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD) shares the new Neighbourhood Financial Health Index, a mapping tool which uses composite data about income, assets, debt, and poverty to show levels of financial health at the neighbourhood...

In this video presentation Patrick Ens from Capital One explains the impact of income and expense volatility on consumers. Capital One found that half of Canadian households surveyed experience some amount of income fluctuation month to month. This impacts their ability to save, cope with...

In this video presentation Andrew Heisz from Statistics Canada explains the changing household assets, debt, and income levels of Canadians of different age generations.   This presentation was given at the Prosper Canada Policy Research Symposium on March 9, 2018. Read the slide deck that...

In this video presentation Rob Levy from the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) shares some of the findings from the U.S. Financial Diaries project. He explains how the households in the study experience multiple "spikes" and "dips" in income and spending over the course of a single...

This publication reveals the outcomes of Bridgable's work with a federal credit union, cutting through their overwhelming number of offerings to better engage with their low-income members. It also discusses why agility is a better bet than digitization when it comes to our changing financial...

In this webinar, "Insights to impact: What behavioural science tells us about building financial well-being," you'll learn about how behavioural science can be used to help build financial well-being and influence the design of financial empowerment programs.  The speakers are Katy Davis,...

A growing number of Canadians are living with fluctuating incomes - incomes which may vary significantly from month to month, not just from year to year. This makes it difficult to save, plan, and achieve financial wellness. This webinar, "Income volatility in Canada: Why it matters and what to do...

Income volatility describes income which is inconsistent (not received on a regular and predictable basis), unstable (amount varies each time it is received), and that fluctuates month to month by a significant percentage. TD’s report, Pervasive and Profound, has found that Canadians...

This is a presentation from Behavioural Economics in Action at Rotman, on financial behaviour and financial literacy. It discusses the RESP / Canada Learning Bond enrolment as an applicaiton for behavioural economics research to improve...

About half of households are considered financially fragile, which means they’re not sure they could come up with $2,000 in 30 days if they had to. Lack of emergency savings is common. It affects about half of households that earn $25,000 to $75,000 a year, and about a quarter of households that...

This paper presents new survey data on subjective mortality beliefs for nearly 5,000 respondents, administered by a professional survey panel provider, and it shows that these survey-elicited beliefs contribute to seemingly contradictory savings rate puzzles at opposite ends of the...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the CFPB) looked at the information sources consumers are exposed to when they make financial decisions. Empowering consumers to make the financial decisions that will help them meet their own life goals is a critical part of the mission of the CFPB. To...

Many consumers live paycheck-to-paycheck. Bills and financial notices arrive by mail and e-mail at different times of the day and month. Consumers typically don’t act on them immediately. Research shows that consumers have many reasons for their actions. To gain insight into why it’s so hard...

Spending responses to income are typically explained by households’ capital structures. Households that hold little or no liquid wealth have to consume hand-to-mouth. However, we find that few individuals hold little or no liquidity, and we document that liquidity holdings are much larger than...

This reports on research results from an experiment in Malawi that varied the timing of workers' income receipt in two ways. First, payments were made either in weekly installments or as a monthly lump sum, in order to vary the extent to which workers had to save up to make pro table investments....

For financial educators and others who help people with decision-making, there is evidence that providing financial rules of thumb to consumers can work better than more detailed and complex financial education in some situations. To further explore the potential of rules of thumb for financial...

People living on low incomes have historically been excluded from politics and policy debates, even when the question at hand is how poverty can be reduced or its impacts mitigated. The aim of this research was to explore how people on low incomes perceive politics, understand how far they feel...

The goal of this report is to share new insights from behavioural science with financial empowerment practitioners so they can integrate behavioural approaches into their work and strengthen the design and delivery of financial empowerment supports for Canadians with low incomes. In this report,...

Financial literacy has been proposed widely as an effective approach to preparing people to manage their finances. This paper proposes an alternative concept, financial capability. Financial capability includes both the ability to act (knowledge, skills, confidence, and motivation) and the...

This brief Guide, Values-Centered Financial Education: Understanding Cultural Influences on Learners’ Financial behaviours, contains tools for you to use to help learners identify the underlying values that motivate them to make sound financial life decisions. You will soon see that by...

The Rodriguez’ enjoy a measure of financial health and security. Maria and her husband, Dean, will soon have the first mortgage paid off on their four-bedroom, two-bathroom house. Buttressed by regular payments from Social Security and other federal benefits, the five members of the household...