“Creating a Financial Stake in College” is a four-part series of reports that focuses on the relationship between children’s savings and improving college success. This series examines: (1) why policymakers should care about savings, (2) the relationship between inequality and bank account ownership, (3) the connections between savings and college attendance, and (4) recommendations to refine children’s savings account proposals.

Every cloud has a silver lining. In the case of the Great Recession, that silver lining is an increased awareness that Americans—especially those in lower-income households—are better off when they have access to a stock of liquid savings to weather unexpected events.  Without these precautionary savings, families are economically insecure. The process of building up these savings largely depends on access to an array of financial products and services, such as low-cost and high-quality savings accounts.

Five years ago Congress enacted modest improvements for employer-sponsored pension and 401(k) plans. Since President Bush signed the Pension Protection Act of 2006, little progress has been made in narrowing the nation’s retirement savings deficit. Most workers are simply not saving enough over their life course to supplement the meager benefits they will receive from Social Security.

Tarnish on the Golden State, a new report issued by the New America Foundation, exposes how medical debt can lead to ill health and financial insecurity for individuals and families. Tens of millions of American families struggle to pay health insurance premiums and medical bills. In 2010, 44 million working aged American adults had medical debt or medical bills they were paying off over time. In California, over two million people had medical debt prior to the recession and the problem has likely become worse since then.