Events Calendar

• America Saves Week, February 21-28: The Basics of Saving: Assessing and Improving Your Savings
  In these tough economic times, many people are taking another look at their family finances with an eye toward saving. The America Saves campaign and its partners offer many resources to help individuals develop better saving habits. Click for more information on the America Saves campaign

News

• February 25, 2010, Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), along with Representatives Tom Petri (R-WI) and Jim Cooper (D-TN), introduced legislation proposing to create children's savings accounts at birth for every child in the U.S.
  
  The Americans Saving for Personal Investment, Retirement and Education Act (ASPIRE) (H.R. 4682) proposes expanding economic and educational opportunities for all American children by encouraging long-term planning, building family wealth and promoting financial literacy by establishing Lifetime Savings Accounts (LSAs).
  Read New America's summary of the bill.
• IASP Release of New Asset Security and Opportunity Index
  The Institute on Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at Brandeis' Heller School for Social Policy and Management releases a new re-conceptualized measure of asset security and opportunity, which provides an important step for practice and research for the growing asset field. The Asset Security and Opportunity Index extends past approaches of measuring asset poverty. Key findings show that 42 percent of all U.S. households of working age do not have asset security and more than half lack asset opportunity. Troubling are the very low asset holdings of African American and Latino households who have the lowest levels of asset security and opportunity for mobility. More than two-thirds among them are not secure with respect to having sufficient assets to meet essential household expenses for three months in absence of earned income, and only one in five households of color have financial assets to invest in opportunities for mobility. View the report at: http://iasp.brandeis.edu/pdfs/Brief.pdf
• FDIC releases mp3 version of financial education curriculum MoneySmart. For more details go to:
  http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/moneysmart/index.html and click on "portable audio version".
• North Carolina Assets Alliance releases report: The Prosperity Grid for North Carolina: Connecting Household and Communities to Prosperity. This report examines how North Carolina families experience the shifting nature of economic life, and includes recommendations for how the network of institutions across the state can make prosperity possible.
• New America Foundation releases 2009 Assets report