Category: Working Paper

Experimental Evidence on Consumption, Saving, and Family Formation Responses to Student Debt Forgiveness

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) provides substantial financial support to low-income Universal basic income has gained renewed interest among policymakers and researchers in the U.S. While research indicates that unconditional cash transfers produce diverse benefits for households, public support lags in part due to the predicted unemployment and frivolous As policy-makers grapple with whether […]

Did government benefits help Israeli households avoid hardship during COVID-19? Evidence from a national survey

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government of Israel quickly introduced aggressive social distancing measures to curb the virus spread and adapted its unemployment insurance program in response to rising unemployment rates. This study examines the relationship between household income and the experience of material hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel and […]

Pinching pennies or money to burn? The role of grit in financial behaviors

We explore whether gritty individuals are better savers by virtue of their wealth or due to diligent choices that benefit their long-term economic health. We test these competing hypotheses by examining the ways in which grit influences how LMI tax filers report spending or saving their tax refund in the months following tax filing. We […]

Toward Finance as a Public Good

Huang, J., Sherraden, M. S., & Sherraden, M. (2021). Toward finance as a public good (CSD Working Paper No. 21-03). Washington University, Center for Social Development. https://doi.org/10.7936/p8dd-p256

Who relocates, where do they move, and why?

The lack of socioeconomic mobility among marginalized populations leads to the concentration of poverty, a long-standing issue in American cities. Empirical studies on neighborhood effects have found that poverty concentration adversely affects the socioeconomic mobility of residents—associated with their economic well-being, employment, education, health, and safety—in lower-income neighborhoods. Through a variety of neighborhood revitalization projects, […]

Cash Transfers and Health

Sun, S., Huang, J., Hudson, D., & Sherraden, M. (2020). Cash transfers and health (CSD Working Paper No. 20-16). St. Louis, MO: Washington University, Center for Social Development.

Strategies for Debt Reduction: Comparing Financial Tips and Financial Counseling

Interest among employers is growing in Employee financial wellness programs (EFWPs), a new type of benefit to address financial stress among employees. EFWPs benefits include financial counseling, small-dollar loans, and savings programs that address employees’ non-retirement financial needs. Little evidence exists concerning the availability and use of and outcomes associated with EFWPs, especially among low- and moderate-income (LMI) workers who may be in greatest need of these benefits. We present findings concerning awareness and use of EFWPs from a national survey of LMI workers (N=16,650). Availability of different EFWP benefits ranged from 11 to 15% and over a third of workers were unaware of whether their employer offered an EFWP. Experiencing financial difficulties predicted both EFWP awareness and use suggesting that employers take time to assess employees’ specific financial challenges to select benefits. Yet use of EFWPs by LMI workers may suggest the need for better compensation and work conditions.

Financial counseling for front-line workers: A pilot study of engagement and outcomes

Although financial counseling has been studied in community-based settings, programs offered in the workplace are understudied and yet may aid low- to moderate income employees in improving their financial situations. This study examines workers’ engagement in and associated credit outcomes from an employer-based financial counseling program in the New York City area. Findings suggest that participants engaged equally in services except for older and non-English speaking workers, who had lower levels of digital engagement. In-person engagement in services was minimal. Credit score improvements were modest, but greater for workers who had

scores in the lowest quartile at baseline. These credit score increases may be due to the reduction of delinquent accounts for workers with the lowest baseline scores.

Tax-time saving and the earned income tax credit: results from online field and survey experiments

Tax refunds are an opportunity for Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) recipients to build emergency savings. Randomly assigned behavioral interventions in 2015 and 2016 have statistically significant impacts on refund saving take-up and amounts among EITC recipients who filed their taxes online. From a survey experiment, we also find that EITC recipients have a 49 percent and 59 percent increased likelihood of deferring 20 percent of their refunds for six months when hypothetically offered 25 and 50 percent savings matches (p < .001), respectively. These findings can inform policy development related to encouraging emergency saving at tax time.

Promoting public retirement savings accounts during tax filing: Evidence from a field experiment

Many U.S. households—especially those with low- to moderate-incomes (LMI)—struggle to save for retirement. To address this issue, the Department of the Treasury launched myRA, a no-fee retirement account designed primarily to help people who lacked access to employer-sponsored plans build retirement savings. In this paper, we report findings from two myRA-focused field experiments, both of which were administered to well over 100,000 LMI online tax filers before and during the 2016 tax season. The first experiment involved sending one of three different myRA-focused email messages to tax filers immediately prior to tax season, and the second experiment involved incorporating myRA-focused messages and choice architecture directly into an online tax filing platform. Messages were chosen to address different barriers to retirement savings LMI households may face. We find that, though the general level of interest in myRA was very low in this population, interest and enrollment in myRA depends heavily on the way in which the benefits of the accounts are framed. Results from both experiments indicate that messages emphasizing the possibility of receiving a larger refund in the future were the most effective at increasing interest in myRA, while messages focused around the simplicity and ease of use of the accounts were less effective. We also conduct several subsample analyses to investigate the extent to which these effects differed by key household characteristics.

The impact of tax refund delays on the experience of hardship and unsecured debt

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) provides substantial financial support to low-income workers, yet around a quarter of EITC payments are estimated to be erroneous or fraudulent. Beginning in 2017, the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 requires the Internal Revenue Service to spend additional time processing early EITC claims, delaying the issuance of tax refunds. Leveraging unique data, we investigate how delayed tax refunds affected the experience of hardship and unsecured debt among EITC recipients. We find that early filers experienced increased food insecurity relative to later filers after the implementation of the refund delay.

Using financial tips to guide debt repayment: Experimental evidence from low-and moderate-income tax filers

Much of the literature on household finances tends to focus on discrete or relatively objective measures like savings, debt, economic mobility, and there has been a lack of research on holistic measures of financial well-being. This gap is due in part to the absence of a common understanding of how to define and measure financial well-being; a gap that was recently addressed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s development of a financial well-being scale. However, the research on this scale is still scarce and little is known about how financial well-being evolves over time. To that end, this paper uses a two-wave survey of low- and moderate-income tax filers to present the first longitudinal analysis of the CFPB’s financial well-being scale. Using a combination of descriptive analysis, OLS regression, and fixed effects panel regression, we assess (1) the stability of financial well-being over a six-month period; (2) the extent to which household characteristics predict volatility in financial well-being; and (3) the relationship between the experience of adverse financial events, including financial shocks and material hardships, and financial well-being. We find that financial well-being scores are extremely stable over the short-term, and that household characteristics are generally not strong predictors of financial well-being changes. We also find that, while adverse financial events like the loss of a job are significantly associated with declines in financial well-being, these changes are not large. These findings have implications for researchers and practitioners interested in using the financial well-being scale in program and policy evaluations.

Fair Housing and Inclusive Communities

Metzger, M. W., & Khare, A. T. (2017). Fair housing and inclusive communities (Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative Working Paper No. 24). Cleveland, OH: American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare.

Asset Building: Toward Inclusive Policy

Sherraden, M., Johnson, L., Clancy, M., Beverly, S. G., Sherraden, M., Schreiner, M., … Han, C.-K. (2016). Asset building: Toward inclusive policy (CSD Working Paper No. 16-49). St. Louis, MO: Washington University, Center for Social Development.

International Child Development Accounts

Sherraden, M., CHENG, L.-C., Ssewamala, F. M., KIM, Y., Loke, V., ZOU, L., … HAN, C.-K. (2016). International Child Development Accounts (CSD Working Paper No. 16-48). St. Louis, MO: Washington University, Center for Social Development.
Under review with theEncyclopedia of Social Work(Oxford University Press).

Financial Inclusion in China: Use of Credit

Chen, Z., & Jin, M. (2016). Financial inclusion in China: Use of credit (CSD Working Paper No. 16-24). St. Louis, MO: Washington University, Center for Social Development.

Reversing Extreme Inequality

Lein, L., Romich, J. L., & Sherraden, M. (2016). Reversing extreme inequality (Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative Working Paper No. 16). Cleveland, OH: American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

Financial Capability and Asset Building for All

Sherraden, M. S., Huang, J., Frey, J. J., Birkenmaier, J., Callahan, C., Clancy, M. M., & Sherraden, M. (2015). Financial capability and asset building for all (Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative Working Paper No. 13). Cleveland, OH: American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

Environment and Social Development

Mason, L. R. (2015). Environment and social development (CSD Working Paper No. 15-33). St. Louis, MO: Washington University, Center for Social Development.

From Mass Incarceration to Smart Decarceration

Pettus-Davis, C., & Epperson, M. W. (2015). From mass incarceration to smart decarceration (Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative Working Paper No. 4). Cleveland, OH: American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

Increasing Productive Engagement in Later Life

Morrow-Howell, N., Gonzales, E., Matz-Costa, C., & Greenfield, E. A. (2015). Increasing productive engagement in later life (Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative Working Paper No. 8). Cleveland, OH: American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

Strengthening the Social Response to the Human Impacts of Environmental Change

Kemp, S. P., & Palinkas, L. A. (with Wong, M., Wagner, K., Reyes Mason, L., Chi, I., … Rechkemmer, A.). (2015). Strengthening the social response to the human impacts of environmental change (Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative Working Paper No. 5). Cleveland, OH: American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.