Discover financial empowerment resources
Discover financial empowerment resources
Women’s shelters are often the first point of contact for victim-survivors fleeing abusive relationships. Therefore, safety and shelter are logically at the forefront of staff members’ immediate concerns. Once the victim-survivor is in a place of safety, it is crucial to explore the patterns of...
Food insecurity is a significant public health problem for Indigenous peoples in Canada. A comprehensive literature review is needed to organize the evidence according to the 4 pillars of food security (i.e., availability, access, utilization, and stability) and identify gaps in the published...
Robo-advisors first arrived in Canada in the beginning of 2014 presenting young and middle-income investors the option of having their savings passively managed in a bundle of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) matched to their goals and risk tolerance for about a penny on the dollar per year: A perfect...
COVID-19’s effects have underscored the ways that racism, bias, and discrimination are embedded in health, social, and economic systems. Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people are experiencing higher rates of infection, hospitalization, and death, and people of color are also overrepresented in...
This report explores the connections between low income, poverty and protected characteristics, how these can shape the experience of poverty, and whether this can result in a similar inequality in terms of when and how poverty premiums are incurred. COVID-19 has thrown light on the link between...
Financial shocks like these happen to financially vulnerable families every day. Such shocks destabilize household finances and can create hardships that threaten overall well-being. Having tools to manage financial emergencies is critical for people’s long-run financial security. The Asset...
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...
Financial stress is the root cause of many adverse health outcomes among poor and low-income children and their families, yet few clinical interventions have been developed to improve health by directly addressing patient and family finances. Medical-Financial Partnerships (MFPs) are novel...
The Fidelity Retirement Survey is focused on how Canadians near, and already in, retirement approach the next stage of their lives. This is the 14th year of the survey. The results indicate Canadians are retiring earlier than expected. They also show 46% of pre-retirees expect to have some...
This report examines the growing racial wealth divide for Black and Latino and the ways that accelerating concentrations of wealth at the top compound and exacerbate this divide. It looks at trends in wealth...
This is the second in a series of briefs produced by a partnership between the Aspen Institute’s Expanding Prosperity Impact Collaborative (EPIC), Washington University’s Center for Social Development (CSD), and the Intuit Tax and Financial Center. The first brief highlighted new data on the...
Modern financial planning is dominated by one topic: retirement planning. However, in spite of extensive study and wide attention, retirement savings rates remain perplexingly low and remarkably resistant to policy intervention. One approach that does seem to work is employer-based education....
This is an editorial opinion written by J. Michael McGinnis, MD, MPP, on findings by John Hopkins Boomberg School of Public Health connecting life expectancy with income level. It has long been known from national-level data that incomes and standards of living are associated with life expectancy,...
BDSC firms are using varied forms of non-traditional data—from mobile call data records and bill payments to Internet browsing patterns and social media behaviour—to create a new way to assess consumer risk, determine the creditworthiness of previously “invisible” consumers, and...
This is a presentation by J. Michael Collins explaining why financial coaching is a more effective intervention to achieve financial capability, compared to financial literacy. He explains the role of counseling, a definition of financial coaching, the role of the coach, and coaching as a form of...
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 article explores benefits screening, a system of auditing patients to identify those living in poverty and the benefits they may be eligible for, as an innovative step towards realizing the right to health in Canada by advancing health equity. In particular, it assesses one online tool...
A lack of emergency savings renders low-income households vulnerable to material hardships resulting from unexpected expenses or loss of income. Having emergency savings helps these households respond to unexpected events, maintain consumption, and avoid high-cost credit products. Because many...
This presentation examines the financial coaching model and suggests an approach to measure outcomes of financial coaching and financial...
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...
Canadians with disabilities have consistently experienced low levels of employment, as well as barriers in the educational, economic and social spheres. They face massive obstacles in participating in the labour market, especially those with severe disabilities or low educational attainment....
This pilot study explores the delivery and effectiveness of MyBudgetCoach, a financial coaching program designed to help low- and moderate-income adults develop budgeting skills, set financial goals, and work towards those goals. Specifically, this study compares two modes of program delivery,...
This pilot study explores the delivery and effectiveness of MyBudgetCoach, a financial coaching program designed to help low- and moderate-income adults develop budgeting skills, set financial goals, and work towards those goals. Specifically, this study compares two modes of program delivery,...
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...
Large health care systems are beginning to invest core operating dollars in connecting their patients to community resources, in service of the ultimate solution to better costs and outcomes: keeping patients...