Financial Inclusion

Originally posted on youthsave.org.

By Tanaya Kilara, CGAP

Originally posted on youthsave.org.

By Rani Deshpande, Save the Children

Originally posted on youthsave.org.

By Tanaya Kilara, CGAP

Originally posted on youthsave.org.

By Lissa Johnson and Julia Stevens, The Center for Social Development

Are YouthSave accounts attracting low-income youth? Are youth making deposits into their YouthSave accounts? Are there adjustments that would help youth to save more? These are questions we’re beginning to answer in YouthSave using data from the savings demand assessment in Ghana, Kenya, and Nepal.

Originally posted on youthsave.org.

By Rani Deshpande and Zebedee Mkala, Save the Children

Democracy: A Journal of Ideas is a quarterly publication that strives to "serve as a place where ideas can be developed and important debates can be spurred."

This past May the New America Foundation hosted the Assets@21 Symposium and Ideas Summit in Washington, DC to commemorate the 21st anniversary of Michael Sherraden's seminal book, Assets and the Poor: A New American Welfare Policy. First published in 1991, the book challenged the prevailing approach to public assistance which focused on income maintenance and immediate consumption and as an alternative articulated a perspective which emphasized the role assets play in promoting social development.

On May 1st and 2nd of 2012, the Asset Building Program at the New American Foundation hosted a symposium and ideas summit in Washington, DC to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the publication of Michael Sherraden’s seminal book, Assets and the Poor. Published in 1991, the book challenged the prevailing approach to welfare policy which focused on income maintenance and immediate consumption and as an alternative articulated a perspective which emphasized the role assets play in promoting social development over the life course.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include the latest on poverty data, health and financial security.

Editor's Note: This edition of Asset Building News Week was authored by our new fall intern, Elliot Schreur. Elliot is a Master's of Public Policy student at the George Washington University here in D.C. Please join us in welcoming Elliot!

A lot of people are probably vaguely aware that credit scores have become increasingly important in recent years. Access to credit is fairly critical for most families, as one of the big trends of the past 30 years has been families swapping in their savings habits for access to credit. That's a trend that has its own problems, but there are times when you have to deal with the world that you live in, and that's a world where credit reporting matters a great deal.