Report

Under federal regulations, 401(k) participants may tap into their accrued retirement savings before retirement under certain circumstances, including hardship. This "leakage" from 401(k) accounts can result in a permanent loss of retirement savings.

Based on our review and synthesis of the individual development account (IDA) literature, findings in this this report include that IDA accounts (in the short-term, five years after program entry) help low-income families become homeowners, start or expand a business, or pursue secondary education. Studies to date have found no relationship between IDA program participation and net worth. The report reviews empirical evidence on the effect of IDA program participation and project design features on outcomes and highlights remaining gaps in the literature.

The Assets for Independence Act of 1998 created the Assets for Independence (AFI) Program— a program that enables community-based nonprofits and government agencies to implement asset-building programs for low-income families. This program, which is administered by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U.S.

Despite the growing importance of housing counseling, there is little systematic information about the industry. The industry is known to be marked by significant diversity in a number of dimensions, including the types of organizations involved, their organizational capacity, the types of clients served, the types of services delivered, and the funding sources used. The primary goal of this study is to provide a systematic overview of the housing counseling industry as of 2007.

In 2008, the SEC commissioned a survey to evaluate "plain English" rules approved in 1998 with the goal of making mandated disclosures simpler, clearer and more useuful. Abt SBRI conducted the telephone survey on a national sample of 1000 adults who invested in stocks, bonds and/or mutual funds outside an employer-sponsored reitrement plan. The survey found that many investors do not read disclosure documents and those who do, spend relatively little time on them. Overall satisfaction was mixed.

This study presents findings on how much Federal Housing Administration (FHA) borrowers pay in closing costs when they buy a house, how much these costs vary, and factors to which the variation is related. The analysis uses data from a national sample of 7,560 FHA-insured, 30-year fixed-rate home purchase loans closed in May and June of 2001.

From 2002–2007, Kleimann Communication Group, Inc. (KCG) conducted six rounds of qualitative testing on various consumer mortgage forms for the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. This report summarizes each round of testing. Mortgage disclosure forms included in the testing were the Good Faith Estimate (GFE) form, the Guaranteed Mortgage Package Agreement (GMPA), the Mortgage Package Offer form (MPO). Testing was conducted in several U.S. cities using several hundred demographically diverse consumers.

In theory, financial professionals are relatively distinct: A broker conducts transactions in securities on behalf of others; a dealer buys and sells securities for his or her own accounts; and an investment adviser provides advice to others regarding securities. Broker-dealers and investment advisers are subject to different regulatory structures. But trends in the financial services market since the early 1990s have blurred the boundaries between them. Regulatory reform requires a clearer understanding of the industry’s complexities. The U.S.