Asset Building Program

Archives: Asset Building Program Articles and Op-Eds

Don't Overlook Tax Credit

  • By
  • Maria Sotero,
  • New America Foundation
March 15, 2010

Raise your hand if you think filing a federal tax return will bring you thousands of dollars. Or if you think tax time this year could bring a windfall of federal stimulus dollars to Fresno's economy.

Most hands, I predict, are down. Everyone dreads doing their taxes. But this year, every working family with an income of less than $48,000 could have a big reason to look forward to it. That's because of something known as the Earned Income Tax Credit. It could be called Big Bucks For Fresno.

It makes filing that tax return very, very worthwhile for many people.

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A Five-Step Guide to Real Financial Reform

  • By
  • Reid Cramer,
  • New America Foundation
March 2, 2010

The next big battle in Washington—one that will heat up fast if the health care tussle is ever resolved—will be fought over reform of the financial sector. In recent weeks, President Barack Obama has gone on the offensive, calling for new restraints on Wall Street wheeling and dealing and vowing to veto weak legislation. In December, the House passed a robust package of reforms. The action has now shifted to the Senate Banking Committee, and chairman Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) has pledged to push a comprehensive package over the finish line before he retires at the end of the year.

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Poor Measurement

  • By
  • Reid Cramer,
  • New America Foundation
March 1, 2010

For most policymakers, it is never a good time to talk about poverty. When times are flush, their constituents are doing well. When recession hits, everyone is hurting. But as economic hardship continues to impact a greater number of families and communities, this may be the time to redouble our search for innovative and potentially effective ways to break the cycle of poverty.

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Opinion: How to Teach Kids Money Matters

  • By
  • Jamie M. Zimmerman,
  • New America Foundation
February 26, 2010

With all the focus on health care this week, it would be easy to overlook an event in Washington that could ultimately make a significant difference in the financial future of our country's next generation.

With little fanfare, a bipartisan bill -- yes, you heard that right -- was introduced in the House of Representatives that would set up savings accounts for every newborn in the country and seed them with $500. It seems like a small idea, but it's potential is huge if it helps turn around a silent crisis in the U.S. -- financial illiteracy.

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Credit Unions Launch a Savings Lottery, and Everyone Hits the Jackpot

  • By
  • Anne Stuhldreher,
  • New America Foundation
February 7, 2010

Highland Park, Mich., is the last place you'd expect to find more people saving money these days. One-third of the residents live below the poverty line, and everyone sees the blight of vacant homes, abandoned furniture and dumped tires. It seems like a ridiculous place to launch an experiment to turn nonsavers into regular savers.

But eight Michigan credit unions, including one in Highland Park, have helped build people's savings by doing something radical: acting less like financial institutions and more like the lottery.

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Americans Must Start Saving Again

  • By
  • David Newville,
  • New America Foundation
December 23, 2009

This year, despite the recession and record-high unemployment, Americans appear to be getting into the holiday spirit by starting to shop again.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing given that consumer spending makes up more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

Americans, however, should not go into debt to buy presents. Just as important, they need to start saving before they spend.

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A Better Way for Payday Loans

  • By
  • Anne Stuhldreher,
  • New America Foundation
December 21, 2009

It's a cycle that seems to repeat itself every legislative session in California. Advocates put forward a bill to curb the predatory practices of payday lenders. Then industry lobbyists squelch the effort, convincing state lawmakers that they're the lenders of last resort, the only ones who haven't abandoned low-income neighborhoods.

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In Pursuit of a Responsible Homeownership Policy

  • By
  • Reid Cramer,
  • New America Foundation
November 30, 2009

While the burst of the housing bubble recedes into the past, its echo continues to reverberate throughout the economy and in communities across the land. The U.S. housing market remains a mess. Home values have steeply fallen from their 2006 peaks, loan defaults have reached historic levels, and the implosion of the housing finance system may take years to rectify. The latest figures from the Mortgage Bankers Association report over 8 percent of all mortgages were at least one month late during the first quarter of 2009, which is the highest figure since tracking began almost 40 years ago.

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Turn America into a Nation of Savers

  • By
  • Reid Cramer,
  • New America Foundation
November 9, 2009

In pursuit of an economic recovery, President Obama has argued that we must transition from an "era of borrow-and-spend to one where we save and invest." It is an appealing concept, especially as the disappearance of surplus assets and historic levels of debt helped transform a garden-variety business cycle recession into a historic collapse.

But how does the saving and investing square with high levels of government borrowing and spending to stimulate the economy, protect those thrown out of work, and prop up consumer demand?

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How Microloans Change the Lives of Millions

  • By
  • Shweta Banerjee,
  • New America Foundation
October 26, 2009

A recent op-ed in the Boston Globe argues that microlending "doesn't actually do much to fight poverty" and that it may be time to "think macro rather than micro." Maybe the hype surrounding microcredit as a panacea for everything from poverty to discrimination is undeserved. But debunking the whole bottom-up, micro approach on the basis of two unpublished papers is not just premature, but dangerous. Macro, trickle-down developmentpolicies have rather effectively kept billions of people poor for decades.

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