Matched Savings programs, or Individual Development Accounts, are a financial empowerment strategy that aim to build financial stability and reduce poverty. These programs build sustainable livelihoods by working with participants to earn savings while learning about money management, build regular...

This paper has two main goals. First, we provide a review of 38 studies on the relationship between assets and children’s educational attainment. Second, we discuss implications for Child Development Accounts (CDAs) policies. CDAs have been proposed as a potentially novel and promising asset...

These results are from the new study "Debt and assets among senior Canadian families." released in April 2018. The study examines changes in debt, assets and net worth among Canadian families whose major income earner was 65 years of age or older. In recent years, household debt has increased....

Current income is usually insufficient to cover college costs in most families, who believe that they must save for college for their children. Furthermore, effects of household savings and asset holding may extend beyond financial security and affect long-term development of children through...

These are the slides from Webinar #4 in the Financial Coaching Listening & Learning Series hosted by the CFED and developed by the assets & Opportunity Network. This webinar examines previous learning in the Financial Coaching & Counseling webinar series, discusses design,...

This is the slide deck from the CFSI / Assets & Opportunity Network webinar on Fintech apps to support financial health. The webinar explains financial health, the goal of financial solutions technologies, the FinLab project to help wealther financial shocks through financial technology -...

To qualify for TANF and SNAP, families in many states must prove, among other criteria, that their income and assets do not exceed state or federal levels. These asset limits are caps on the amount of cash, savings, or material property that a family can hold when applying. In the case of TANF,...

Using data from the Survey of Financial Security (SFS), this article looks at changes in debt, assets and net worth among senior Canadian families over the period from 1999 to 2016. It also examines changes in the debt-to income ratio and the debt to-asset ratio of senior families with debt. This...

This is a webinar presenting the results of the Building Savings For Success evaluation report of matched savings account programs in 2 United States cities. One city used a coaching model, the other a case management model. The program showed that participants increased their liquid assets and...

Individual development accounts (IDAs) help low-income families save by matching their personal savings for specific investments, such as a first home, business capitalization, or higher education and training. The Assets for Independence (AFI) program is a federally supported IDA grant program...

In this paper we seek to determine the effect of assets held in early adult life on later outcomes. We specifically look at wages, employment prospects, general health and malaise. We employ a number of statistical techniques in our search for the causal effect of assets on adult health and...

CFED has developed a Household Financial Security Framework to help us think through what it takes, at the household level, to build financial security over time. Reducing poverty and achieving financial security and empowerment is a dynamic process in which households iteratively gain skills,...

The ability to build assets allows an individual or family to meet long-term financial goals and create economic stability for the future. This toolkit contains resources on goal setting, action planning and information on financial products and government supports that can help with building...

This article examines changes in the wealth of Canadian families (i.e. total family assets minus total family debt) over the period from 1999 to 2012, with a particular focus on changes across income quintiles. The paper also examines changes in the concentration of wealth across income quintiles,...

The JPMorgan Chase Institute has assembled data assets and perspectives on income and spending volatility over the last three years and examined the impacts of extraordinary income changes from job loss and extraordinary expense changes, notably from medical payments. Here we take a holistic view...

This report focuses on the role that policy design can have on closing the country’s unrelenting and unacceptable racial wealth divide. We utilize a new framework—The Racial Wealth Audit—launched jointly by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University (IASP) and Demos to...

This is an infographic on the Adaptive Prosperity framework developed by the Indiana Association for Community Economic Development. This is a collaborative vision of empowerment and assets focused on all parts of a...

This is a Presentation showing several different frameworks for assets and financial capability, collected by the CFED. This includes the Household Financial Security framework, the Financial Capability Lifecycle, Road to Economic Security, and...

Many public benefit programs – such as cash welfare and Medicaid – limit eligibility to those with few or no assets. If individuals or families have assets exceeding the state’s limit, they must “spend down” longer-term savings in order to receive what is often short-term public...

The widening wealth gap in the United States is a worrisome sign that millions of families nationwide do not have enough in assets to offer better opportunities for future generations. On the basis of data collected using the National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Color (NASCC) survey, we...

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...

This brief explains the asset-building approach to poverty reduction.  While many families who live on low incomes struggle to meet basic needs, they miss out on opportunities to save and invest - opportunities that are critical in overcoming poverty. Without income, people are unable to get by...

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...

This is a brief presentation by Ray Boshara from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It shows data from the Survey of Consumer Finances "financial health scorecard." Results show the disparities in wealth for already vulnerable families, and differences by age, ethnicity, and education. No...

Women’s economic well-being has many contributing factors, principally current income. However, income alone may not provide a full picture of women’s current and future economic well-being. Other determinants of families’ and individuals’ economic well-being, such as assets, debts and net...