This infographic is a preview of Commonwealth's research survey of 1290 lower-and moderate-income people to understand their perceptions, needs, and uses of conversational...

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...

Over the last two years, digital payment solutions, including peer-to-peer apps, digital wallets, and contactless payment solutions, have grown in popularity and adoption. With 125 million American mobile payment users predicted by 2025 Commonwealth sought to understand the potential for these...

Almost all poverty measures commonly used in Canada work by setting a dollar amount – a poverty line – below which a household is said to be in poverty, above which a household is not considered poor. But when we measure poverty only according to income, we may incorrectly assess whether or not...

The 2013 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC) is the sixth in a series of annual studies conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston to gain a comprehensive understanding of the cash and noncash payment behaviour of U.S. consumers. This report summarizes data collected in the 2013 SCPC and...

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...

Approaching anti-poverty work from this view point asks that we re-think the social compact between government and its constituents. It demands that we think beyond reactive policies focused narrowly on crisis intervention and preservation of the safety net, to policies that aim to proactively help...

This is a household profile of a participant in the U.S. Financial Diaries project. Tim and Clara Adrian are in their early 30’s and live in Mississippi in a four-bedroom house that they own. While Tim and Clara both earn regular incomes, however, the linchpin in their budget is the income they...

Family income volatility has increased over the past three decades, though the trend for individual earnings volatility is less clear. Low-income households have more volatile incomes than do higher income households and this gap has grown over time. Job losses, reductions in employment hours, and...

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...

All Canadians aspire to a quality of life that provides access to opportunity for themselves and their families. We at SEDI know that there are basic requirements, which form the underpinnings of achieving this goal. They are education, health care, employment and income security, wealth...

This presentation from SAGE Financial Solutions is about financial coaching as an approach to improving indivdiual financial capabilty and goal setting. It reports on the successes and challenges of EARN WealthCare Financial Coaching Program in the United States, where participants were "graduates"...

This brief emerged from a conversation, held in late March 2020, among a number of individuals and organizations who work on issues of household financial security. Employers with financial resources and governments have an opportunity to use the workplace as a significant channel to deliver...

Financial empowerment (FE) is an approach to poverty reduction that focuses on improving the financial security of people living on low income. Evidence shows that embedding FE interventions into municipal welfare, employment, housing, shelter and health services can significantly boost service...

The research and policy symposium on income volatility was held on March 9, 2018, in Toronto, Ontario. Speakers from Canada and the United States present on key research findings on the nature of income and expense volatility in the early 21st Century. Speakers also suggest policy solutions to...

Building on the Asset Funders Network’s the Health and Wealth Connection: Investment Opportunities Across the Life Course brief, this paper details: What we know about the health-wealth connection for adults. Why investment in integration is important. How philanthropy can contribute to...

Women own, on average, only 32 cents for every $1 owned by a man in America. Women of color have even less. Both the gender wage gap and the gender wealth gap need to be taken into account to address threats to women's economic...

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...

This new Poverty Trends Scorecard consisting of four reports now presents an update of the information on income, wealth, and inequality. Over three years later, the recovery has yet to fully take hold. The individuals and families who bore the brunt of the 2008–09 recession face continuing...

This is the slide deck from a webinar by Community Action Partnership for the CFED, on the racial wealth divide and the challenge of wealth building for families of color in the United States. Racial Inequality has always had economic inequality at its foundation....

The findings in this report from the National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Color (NASCC) survey reveal major disparities in wealth accumulation across various racial and ethnic groups in Los Angeles. Our analysis shows that with respect to types and size of household assets and debt, there...

This report examines the growing racial wealth divide for Black and Latinos households and the ways that accelerating concentrations of wealth at the top compound and exacerbate this divide. We look at trends in wealth accumulation from 1983 to 2013, as well as projections of what the next thirty...

Despite the well-documented connection between health and wealth, investing in this intersection is still a new approach for many grantmakers. With the goal of inspiring increased philanthropic attention, exploration, and replication, this new spotlight elevates responsive philanthropic strategies...

This report examines data from the Federal Reserve System’s 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances to understand how the wealth of median Black, Latino and White families have changed since the findings of its previous survey were released in...

By 2003, the savings and asset building field had achieved critical research and policy successes. However, some challenges it faced were the lack of a substantial presence of organizations of color in the field and the absence of experts of color at decision-making tables. Over the course of 11...