Researcher

This report examines the utilization of a state earned income credit by current and former welfare recipients using two measures: receipt among all current and former welfare recipients and among only those eligible for the credit. Both measures may be useful, depending upon which groups policymakers hope to target.

The State of Minnesota’s Emerging Markets Homeownership Initiative (EMHI) seeks to boost homeownership rates among Minnesota’s “emerging markets,” defined as households of color, non-English speaking households, and households in which English is a second language. Many of the implementation strategies in the EMHI Business Plan address general barriers to homeownership and should increase the number of emerging market households that become first-time homeowners. EMHI doesn’t stop there, however.

In a small a financial education pilot at Oh Day Aki Charter School in Minneapolis involving one teacher and about 100 middle and high school students, results suggest that that standard financial education materials can be adapted to benefit Native students in an urban setting, despite pre-existing educational challenges that are typical of inner-city schools, such as high turnover and low reading skills. The pilot's sponsoring partners hope to build on the lessons learned in order to further promote financial education for Native youth.

This article reviews research on the effectiveness of general financial literacy training to draw implications for literacy training related to predatory lending. The article concludes that training offered by high schools and workplaces is associated with improved financial knowledge and behavior, especially for low-income or less-educated recipients. Although evidence on homeowner education and counseling is less clear cut, the article concludes that financial literacy training has the potential to curb predatory lending.

This descriptive analysis examines the importance of personal financing sources, especially mortgages secured by residential property, to small businesses from 1998 through 2007. About 80 percent of the total debt owned by small business-owning house-holds is held in mortgages and installment loans. The likelihood of holding a residential mortgage increased from 64.7 percent in 1998 to over 73 percent in 2007, and the share of total debt held in residential mortgages increased from 67.3 percent in 1998 to 70.6 percent in 2007 for small business-owning households.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Take Charge America Institute at the University of Arizona, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis invited a small group of researchers and practitioners to discuss how to improve the evaluation and metrics of youth financial education programs. The meeting focused specifically on youth — which we defined as individuals under the age of 25 – in an effort to distinguish this effort from others that have discussed financial education research more broadly.

The Community Development Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSF) commissioned this study to explore the feasibility of passing a financial education mandate in California. Specifically, we sought to understand the key barriers related to passing a mandate in California and to identify strategies to implement financial education in the current environment, despite the absence of a state mandate.

This study examines the relationship between bank account ownership and student knowledge of personal finance. To assess financial knowledge, the study relies on national data collected every two years by the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Finance. Using test scores from the 2008 JumpStart survey, I assess whether scores are significantly higher among students that have bank accounts, relative to those students that have no formal banking relationship, controlling for demographic and socio-economic variables that might influence financial knowledge.

About 10 million American households do not use any aspect of the banking system. A large body of research provides evidence that limited involvement in the mainstream financial sector is most common among low- and moderate-income (LMI) households. Although their income may be relatively low, these individuals hold assets and regularly conduct financial transactions, frequently with nonbank financial companies.

The importance of investment portfolio allocation has become more apparent since the onset of the late 2000s Great Recession. Individual willingness to take financial risks affects portfolio decisions and investment returns among other factors. Previous research found that people of different ages have dissimilar levels of risk tolerance but the effects of generation, period, and aging were confounded. Using the 1998–2007 Survey of Consumer Finances cross-sectional datasets, this study uses an analytical method to separate such effects on financial risk tolerance.