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Full-Text Articles in Social Work

Asset Building As Social Investment, Michael Sherraden Dec 2018

Asset Building As Social Investment, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

Asset-building policies have been widely adopted since the middle of the 20th century, but most lack features that would make them accessible to all populations—features such as universal at-birth enrollment and progressive incentive structures. Because these policies are not inclusive, they primarily serve the well-off and are highly regressive. In this contribution to Social Investments, Asset Building, and Social Development—the State of the Art: A Special Issue in Honor of James Midgley, Michael Sherraden continued the work of formulating a proposal for a national policy to foster broad economic security by extending the benefits of asset accumulation to all members …


Financial Capability As Social Investment, Mary Caplan, Margaret S. Sherraden, Junghee Bae Dec 2018

Financial Capability As Social Investment, Mary Caplan, Margaret S. Sherraden, Junghee Bae

Center for Social Development Research

In this contribution to Social Investments, Asset Building, and Social Development—the State of the Art: A Special Issue in Honor of James Midgley, the authors discuss trends in financial vulnerability, identify global indicators, and present a series of case studies that collectively illustrate the state of efforts to broaden financial capability. They suggest ways in which those efforts fit within a social investment framework.


The Global Research Agenda On Volunteering For Peace And Development, Benjamin J. Lough Phd, Cliff Allum, Peter Devereux, Rebecca Tiessen Dec 2018

The Global Research Agenda On Volunteering For Peace And Development, Benjamin J. Lough Phd, Cliff Allum, Peter Devereux, Rebecca Tiessen

Center for Social Development Research

This brief discusses the global research agenda on volunteering in activities designed to advance peace and foster development, reviewing the agenda’s history, objectives, and priorities. It also revisits key areas of research progress made from 2015 through 2018 and discusses the resources needed to further advance this agenda through 2025.


Incomplete Democracy: The Relationship Of Race, Income, And Education To Voter Participation, Gena Gunn Mcclendon Phd, Kyle A. Pitzer, Austin T. Tolani Oct 2018

Incomplete Democracy: The Relationship Of Race, Income, And Education To Voter Participation, Gena Gunn Mcclendon Phd, Kyle A. Pitzer, Austin T. Tolani

Center for Social Development Research

Does the growing number of registered voters represent the diverse population of the United States, particularly the population’s racial, economic, and educational diversity? This research brief examines the characteristics of voters and whether their demographics are associated with voter participation rates in the City of St. Louis, Missouri, and in St. Louis County. It presents findings from zip code–level analyses of voting and registration data. The authors propose a two-pronged strategy for strengthening electoral participation and offer specific policy recommendations.


Promoting Savings At Tax Time: Insights From Online And In-Person Tax Preparation Services, Genevieve Davison, Ellen Frank-Miller, Stephen P. Roll, Michal Grinstein-Weiss Aug 2018

Promoting Savings At Tax Time: Insights From Online And In-Person Tax Preparation Services, Genevieve Davison, Ellen Frank-Miller, Stephen P. Roll, Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Center for Social Development Research

This report presents findings and insights from Refund to Savings: Applications for myRA, a collaborative project involving the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Washington University in St. Louis, and Intuit, Inc. The project explored methods of promoting the myRA (My Retirement Account) savings program at tax time—that is, when households file their taxes. It focused specifically on opportunities in an online tax-filing setting and in person at Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites. The first component of the project examined the retirement needs of low- and moderate-income (LMI) tax filers through a large, national, online survey. It also …


Refund To Savings 2015-2016: Field Experiments To Promote Tax-Time Saving In Low- And Moderate-Income Households, Stephen P. Roll, Genevieve Davison, Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Mathieu R. Despard, Sam Bufe Jun 2018

Refund To Savings 2015-2016: Field Experiments To Promote Tax-Time Saving In Low- And Moderate-Income Households, Stephen P. Roll, Genevieve Davison, Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Mathieu R. Despard, Sam Bufe

Center for Social Development Research

This report covers the design and impacts of the R2S experiments in the 2015 and 2016 tax seasons (which include the 2014 and 2015 tax years), and also includes results from a 6-month follow-up survey conducted in 2015 to assess how the impacts of R2S interventions persist over time. These interventions reached a large number of tax filers in both of these years; 646,116 in 2015 and 284,125 in 2016.


How Do Changes To 529 Rules Affect Children’S Savings Account Programs?, Margaret Clancy, Shira Markoff, Justin King May 2018

How Do Changes To 529 Rules Affect Children’S Savings Account Programs?, Margaret Clancy, Shira Markoff, Justin King

Center for Social Development Research

Federal legislation enacted late in 2017 altered the statue governing 529 college savings plans, which were originally designed to hold assets for postsecondary education. Under the amended statute, funds in 529 plans may be used to cover K–12 tuition. This brief, developed through the Center for Social Development’s collaboration with Prosperity Now and New America, examines the implications of the changes for existing Child Development Account (CDA) policies and concludes that the new federal rule changes do not affect the ability of CDA programs to retain previous—or define new—restrictions for postsecondary education use. Yet, as the discussion illustrates, CDA programs …


Policy Recommendations For Financial Capability And Asset Building By Increasing Access To Safe, Affordable Credit, Julie Birkenmaier, Mathieu R. Despard, Terri Friedline May 2018

Policy Recommendations For Financial Capability And Asset Building By Increasing Access To Safe, Affordable Credit, Julie Birkenmaier, Mathieu R. Despard, Terri Friedline

Center for Social Development Research

Strong credit is a prerequisite for financial well-being, but many U.S. consumers lack access to safe and affordable credit options. This brief, released through the Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative’s network toBuild Financial Capability for All, identifies policies that would enable households to build and maintain credit and that would ensure access to credit products with adequate consumer protections.


Policy Recommendations For Expanding Access To Banking And Financial Services, Terri Friedline, Mathieu R. Despard, Julie Birkenmaier May 2018

Policy Recommendations For Expanding Access To Banking And Financial Services, Terri Friedline, Mathieu R. Despard, Julie Birkenmaier

Center for Social Development Research

Access to financial services is a necessity in the modern economy, yet many households lack such access. This brief, released through the Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative’s network toBuild Financial Capability for All, identifies policies with the potential to expand access to financial services for households in the United States.


Policy Recommendations For Helping U.S. Households Build Emergency Savings, Mathieu R. Despard, Terri Friedline, Julie Birkenmaier May 2018

Policy Recommendations For Helping U.S. Households Build Emergency Savings, Mathieu R. Despard, Terri Friedline, Julie Birkenmaier

Center for Social Development Research

In households without emergency savings, an unexpected expense or financial shock can heighten stress and threaten the ability to meet basic needs. This brief, released through the Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative’s network toBuild Financial Capability for All, identifies three types of policies to enable U.S. households to save for emergencies.


Next Steps: Whither Social Work Education And Financial Capability And Asset Building?, Darla Spence Coffey May 2018

Next Steps: Whither Social Work Education And Financial Capability And Asset Building?, Darla Spence Coffey

Center for Social Development Research

This CSD Perspective has been adapted from an address given by Dr. Coffey on April 17, 2018, as part of Coin a Better Future: Reaching Out to Financially Vulnerable Families, an event sponsored by the Center for Social Development at Washington University and the Center for Household Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.


A Toolkit For Expanding Financial Capability At Tax Time, Genevieve Davison, Merideth Covington, Olga Kondratjeva, Stephen P. Roll, Michal Grinstein-Weiss May 2018

A Toolkit For Expanding Financial Capability At Tax Time, Genevieve Davison, Merideth Covington, Olga Kondratjeva, Stephen P. Roll, Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Center for Social Development Research

This work expands upon The Volunteer Income Tax Preparer’s Toolkit: Showing Clients Why Tax Time is the Right Time to Save, a 2015 Toolkit by the Center for Social Development. This new offering presents the current evidence underpinning various tax-time efforts to expand financial capability among low- and moderate-income households. It includes sections on creating a VITA program and on several financial-capability products and services that organizations can offer alongside free tax-preparation services. The evidence comes from a variety of sources, but we highlight findings from research conducted by CSD, particularly that conducted as part of the Refund to Savings …


Faculty Perspectives On Financial Capability And Asset Building In Social Work Education: A Research Report, Margaret S. Sherraden, Jin Huang, Lissa Johnson, Peter Dore, Julie Birkenmaier, Vernon Loke, Sally Hageman Apr 2018

Faculty Perspectives On Financial Capability And Asset Building In Social Work Education: A Research Report, Margaret S. Sherraden, Jin Huang, Lissa Johnson, Peter Dore, Julie Birkenmaier, Vernon Loke, Sally Hageman

Center for Social Development Research

This report is based on a study conducted in collaboration with the Council on Social Work Education. The report presents findings from a national online survey of social work faculty. Results identify financial and economic (F&E) content taught in the current curriculum, gaps in coverage, and strategies for improving the academic preparation of social workers in these areas. Findings will inform financial capability and asset-building curriculum and improve the academic preparation of social workers.


Build The Village That Raises The Child, Homegrown Stl Mar 2018

Build The Village That Raises The Child, Homegrown Stl

Center for Social Development Research

HomeGrown STL is an initiative to take on long-standing community disparities by improving the social mobility of the region’s 60,000 black boys and young men in one generation. More than 120 regional leaders and providers working to improve the lives of black boys and young men in St. Louis participated in the second annual HomeGrown STL Summit on February 8, 2018, at the Brown School of Social Work.


Taking Child Development Accounts To Scale: Ten Key Policy Design Elements, Michael Sherraden, Margaret M. Clancy, Sondra G. Beverly Feb 2018

Taking Child Development Accounts To Scale: Ten Key Policy Design Elements, Michael Sherraden, Margaret M. Clancy, Sondra G. Beverly

Center for Social Development Research

The United States subsidizes asset accumulation for middle- and especially high-income families through the federal income tax system. Low-income families are much less likely than high-income families to benefit from these policies. The vision for Child Development Accounts (CDAs) has been for a universal and progressive policy aimed at long-term asset building for all. Bringing CDAs to scale nationwide in a sustainable manner will require a national policy structure, so that all children can build assets. This brief aims to advance universal and progressive CDAs by identifying 10 key design elements that can be implemented and sustained at scale.


The State Of State Eitcs: An Overview And Their Implications For Low- And Moderate-Income Households, Genevieve Davison, Stephen P. Roll, Samuel H. Taylor, Michal Grinstein-Weiss Jan 2018

The State Of State Eitcs: An Overview And Their Implications For Low- And Moderate-Income Households, Genevieve Davison, Stephen P. Roll, Samuel H. Taylor, Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Center for Social Development Research

The success of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has prompted numerous states to develop and administer their own EITC programs. This brief presents the results of analyses that used data from a large sample of low- and moderate-income households to learn more about the relationship between state and federal EITCs as well as about their relationships, respective and combined, with financial behaviors and the experience of financial and material hardship. Given that many EITC beneficiaries face substantial risk of experiencing income volatility and financial shocks, insights gained from this brief can assist policymakers in understanding the importance of …


Responses To And Repercussions From Income Volatility In Low- And Moderate-Income Households: Results From A National Survey, Stephen P. Roll, David S. Mitchell, Krista Holub, Sam Bufe, Michal Grinstein-Weiss Jan 2018

Responses To And Repercussions From Income Volatility In Low- And Moderate-Income Households: Results From A National Survey, Stephen P. Roll, David S. Mitchell, Krista Holub, Sam Bufe, Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Center for Social Development Research

This is the second in a series of briefs that the Center for Social Development has produced in partnership with the Aspen Institute’s Expanding Prosperity Impact Collaborative (EPIC) and the Intuit Tax and Financial Center. Thefirst brief highlighted new data on the prevalence of income and expense volatility in low- and moderate-income households. This second brief examines income volatility’s effects on Americans’ financial lives, showing that it is associated with dramatic increases in the likelihood of experiencing several hardships. The findings have broad implications for future research and policy.


The Role Of Choice Architecture In Promoting Saving At Tax Time: Evidence From A Large-Scale Field Experiment, Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Cynthia Cryder, Mathieu R. Despard, Dana C. Perantie, Jane E. Oliphant, Dan Ariely Jan 2018

The Role Of Choice Architecture In Promoting Saving At Tax Time: Evidence From A Large-Scale Field Experiment, Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Cynthia Cryder, Mathieu R. Despard, Dana C. Perantie, Jane E. Oliphant, Dan Ariely

Center for Social Development Research

This paper presents the findings of a large-scale field experiment (N = 646,16) from the Refund to Savings Initiative. The experiment tested a choice architecture and persuasive messaging intervention that increased saving among low-moderate income (LMI) consumers by approximately 50% during tax refund time. Two follow-up experiments parsed components of the intervention. The first follow-up experiment (N = 569) tested the messaging and choice architecture interventions separately, finding that each can increase savings. a final follow-up experiment (N = 554) tested individual elements of the choice architecture intervention, demonstrating that mere mention of savings within choice options was not sufficient …


The Experience Of Volatility In Low- And Moderate-Income Households: Results From A National Survey, Stephen P. Roll, David S. Mitchell, Sam Bufe, Gracie Lynne, Michal Grinstein-Weiss Jan 2018

The Experience Of Volatility In Low- And Moderate-Income Households: Results From A National Survey, Stephen P. Roll, David S. Mitchell, Sam Bufe, Gracie Lynne, Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Center for Social Development Research

This is the first in a series of briefs that the Center for Social Development has produced in partnership with the Aspen Institute’s Expanding Prosperity Impact Collaborative (EPIC) and the Intuit Tax and Financial Center. It highlights new data on the prevalence of income and expense volatility in low- and moderate-income households.