CSD News

To contribute to public discourse on how to make the United States more equitable, safe and livable for everyone, Michael Sherraden and Richard P. Barth submitted the opinion piece “12 questions for the presidential debate” to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

​Social Security provides an important base of income, and without it about 50 percent of America’s elderly would live in poverty, said David Certner, legislative counsel and legislative policy director for government affairs at AARP.

The American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare has developed a list of 12 questions for candidates for president, Congress, and state and local offices. The questions stem from work at the Grand Challenges policy conference, September 15-16, which drew more than 250 experts, advocates, and leading academics from all over the United States.

Students who come out of college with debt — especially larger amounts — are more likely to face hardship and financial difficulty during their lives, finds a new study from the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis.

Our photo album from the September 2016 “Social Innovation for America’s Renewal” features more than 130 pictures. If you or your organization would like to use a some to promote the Grand Challenges, you may download them.

​U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) sent a video to welcome and encourage the more than 250 attendees of the Grand Challenges for Social Work policy conference, “Social Innovation for America’s Renewal,” September 14-16 at the Brown School of Social Work.

More than 250 experts, advocates, and leading academics from all over the United States converged this week on the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis to outline a comprehensive range of solutions to some of the most pressing issues facing the nation and the next administration.

National experts, advocates and leading academics will gather at Washington University in St. Louis on Sept. 14-16 as part of a policy conference designed to hammer out constructive solutions to pressing social issues facing the country and the next administration.

On August 18, the Center for Social Development received the College Kids Ambassador Award from the St. Louis Treasurer’s Office of Financial Empowerment.

More than 60 people from 10 states and the District of Columbia participated in the “Child Development Account Forum” on August 16 at the Brown School.

United Way of Greater St. Louis and Emerson are creating an Individual Development Account program for families in north St. Louis County, United Way announced June 28. The program is part of an effort to improve the financial stability of low-income families in the St. Louis region.

The Smart Decarceration Initiative has launched a two-year research project to advance “deferred prosecution” programs, thanks to funding from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation​.

Hosted by Brookings and the Building Bridges Coalition, the June 14 event in Washington, D.C., was the 10th anniversary forum on the role of volunteers in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 and on the coalition’s impact research.

​Building on a longtime working history, leadership from the Center for Social Development formally advised the Israeli government in May on best practices for implementing the country’s new law to confer universal savings accounts on children born in Israel. The law takes effect in January 2017.

CSD Director Michael Sherraden was awarded an honorary doctorate in philosophy in May at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

More than 100 people converged on Washington University in St. Louis for Influencing Social Policy’s 2016 national conference, “Race and Inequality: Policy & Advocacy for Structural Change.”

​Top Ghana officials, representatives from more than 20 financial institutions and practitioners met in April in Accra, Ghana, to learn about YouthSave research findings and how they could encourage young people to open bank accounts and save.

New research from the Center for Social Development at Washington University showed that low- to moderate-income black students and graduates accrued $7,721 more education debt than their white counterparts.

Just days before this year’s April 18 tax filing deadline, U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) proposed a plan to encourage Americans to build emergency funds.

Social entrepreneur Peter Nares, the founder of Prosper Canada and longtime friend of the Center for Social Development, died on April 5. He was 66.

We are pleased to share news from and highlight ongoing collaborations with our global partners the Centre for Social Development Asia, at the National University of Singapore, and the Centre for Social Development in Africa, at the University of Johannesburg.

The Singapore government announced on March 24 that it significantly expanded Child Development Accounts as of that date.

​Families’ costs have decreased for Missouri’s MOST 529 college savings plan, and now there is no minimum deposit required to open an account.

The Collaboration on Race, Inequality, and Social Mobility in America examines the impact of inequality and structural racism on people of color in our country.

​Every student in public, private and home schools in Salem City, N.J., will have access to a seed deposit in a 529 college savings account starting in April, officials announced.

​In the midst of the 2016 tax season, leaders from philanthropy, policy, practice and academia convened in at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for a symposium about using tax time to build Americans’ financial capability.

Dean Khinduka built the modern research-oriented George Warren Brown School of Social Work. He is also a dedicated leader committed to furthering the social work profession.

An ambitious call to action on pressing social problems in America was issued January 14 at the Society for Social Work and Research annual conference in Washington, D.C.

The Volunteer Income Tax Preparer’s Toolkit: Showing Clients Why Tax Time is the Right Time to Save is a communications and resource guide for tax preparers on encouraging clients to save a part of their refund at tax time.

On January 18, Purnell delivered remarks titled “Ancient virtues for modern times: Lessons from the life of Martin Luther King” at the 29th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Celebration at Washington University.

Nearly 50 scholars, educators, researchers and macro social work practitioners met in January in Washington, D.C., for the convening on Financial Capability & Asset Building: Moving Forward.

Our newly published Report to the Community provides an updated overview of the Center for Social Development’s work and plans.

Michal Grinstein-Weiss, associate director of the Center for Social Development, spent part of December traveling in Israel on an important mission: to spread the word about how Israel can best implement its new law to provide universal child savings accounts known in the United States as Child Development Accounts, to all newborns.

“What It’s Worth: Strengthening the Financial Future of Families, Communities and the Nation” includes 40 essays by the nation’s leading experts on economics, financial services, public policy and philanthropy from across a broad range of sectors.

Every kindergartner enrolled this year in St. Louis City public and charter schools is receiving a college savings account, Treasurer Tishaura O. Jones said at the official launch of the College Kids program.

Israel’s parliament has passed a law funding long-term savings accounts for all newborns, based on a proposal developed by Michal Grinstein-Weiss, associate director of the Center for Social Development, and on research efforts led by Michael Sherraden, director of CSD.

When Molly Metzger was a PhD student, the time came for her to draft research questions for her dissertation. She drew a blank. After three years in classrooms, she felt out of touch with her topic: low-income housing.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has announced the national launch of the myRA program, a government-backed retirement plan for people who don’t have access to a retirement savings plan at work or who haven’t found an easy enough way to save.

In 2010, researchers in the vast YouthSave Initiative started investigating whether low-income youth can build savings in the developing countries of Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and Nepal. Now their findings are summarized in a newly released report.

More than 100 people gathered in St. Louis in October to hear leading experts discuss the latest research, funding, program and account-structure ideas in the growing field of Child Development Accounts.

Warning that “we are going to see many more Fergusons in this country,” Richard Rothstein recounts the history of government’s role in racial segregation, in a video created for our event “Inclusive Housing: A Public Forum for Policy Action in St. Louis.”

Despite the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, stark racial and economic segregation in housing continues. On Oct. 22, the Center for Social Development and the Clark-Fox Policy Institute hosted “Inclusive Housing: A Public Forum for Policy Action in St. Louis.”

A woman in Tennessee sells her plasma twice a week to help her family of four survive. She has little cash, about $2 a day, but she has a lot of company. The number of families living on $2 per person, per day, has soared to 1.5 million American households, including about 3 million children.

YouthSave researchers gathered recently in Washington, D.C., to discuss what they learned over five years about how to provide scalable saving mechanisms to low-income youth—and what their findings could mean for youth development and financial inclusion.

Answering the call to participate in the Smart Decarceration Initiative’s first conference, about 150 people from throughout the country gathered September 24-27 at Washington University in St. Louis to work on redefining justice in America.

The U.S. Department of Labor on Monday confirmed a grant to St. Louis YouthBuild of $1.06 million to support academic and occupational skills training for at-risk youth. Washington University is is a partner with YouthBuild, a relationship that was seeded by an event early this year initiated by the Center for Social Development.

Melvin L. Oliver, PhD, a nationally recognized expert on racial and urban inequality, delivered a major speech Wednesday at Washington University in St. Louis, interspersing it with more than a dozen books he recommends.

The Ferguson Commission in its report released this week called for universal Child Development Accounts that are statewide and automatic.

The United States faces the tremendous challenge of reducing its overreliance on prisons and jails. As the social and economic costs of incarceration rise, great need—and opportunity—exists to reverse the trend. The new Smart Decarceration Initiative, based at the Center for Social Development, is taking up the challenge.

Israel’s parliament will consider a state budget this fall that includes funding for long-term savings accounts for all newborns, a proposal authored by Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD, the associate director of the Center for Social Development, and based on research efforts led by Michael Sherraden, PhD, the director of CSD.

An experimental Individual Development Account had no effect on whether participants opened a retirement account or on the adequacy of their retirement savings, according to a newly published article in the Journal of Gerontological Social Work.

​At the Center for Social Development, we believe that financial security should be lifelong, starting at birth and extending from childhood through adulthood. Today CSD is proud to join CFED and more than a dozen other partners in launching the Campaign for Every Kid’s Future.

​Most young people in Sub-Saharan Africa are not saving money, and an article in the journal Global Social Welfare explains what helps or hurts them in their efforts.

In the United States, the largest Child Development Account (CDA) programs have been built on existing college savings plans, often called 529 plans after the relevant section of the Internal Revenue Code.

​CSD Director Michael Sherraden, PhD, was awarded the Richard Lodge Prize for 2015. He received the prize on May 8 at the Adelphi University School of Social Work’s annual Alumni and Friends Day.

If you’ve ever wondered about the green icons on the top and bottom of CSD’s website pages, here’s a quick explanation.

A well-known economist, Dr. Steuerle is an Urban Institute fellow and co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy.

Tax-time savings programs help low- and moderate-income families save significantly more of their refunds than those who choose not to participate, finds an analysis of such a program called $aveNYC.

​People in the field of social work are crucial to broadening how to think about the poor and their financial decision making, Camille Busette, PhD, said in the keynote speech at the 2015 Convening on Financial Capability & Asset Building: Advancing Education, Research, and Practice in Social Work.

Robert Putnam grew up in Port Clinton, Ohio. Back then, in the 1950s, children from both sides of the tracks in his working-class town went to school together, played sports together, knew each other and watched out for each other.

The Great Recession exposed the financial fragility of millions of American families. Now researchers and policymakers are striving to improve the next generation’s grasp of personal finance and its access to safe financial products.

Robert D. Putnam is famous for his best-selling book “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” which warned that Americans were withdrawing from each other and from civic life.

A groundbreaking project examining the attitudes and practices of young people in developing economies toward saving money has led to new findings that confirm and challenge assumptions about youth saving at formal financial institutions.

Singapore’s innovative response to its rough and vulnerable beginning has shaped the first 50 years of the island country, Michael Sherraden said Wednesday, speaking to a crowd gathered at the National University of Singapore for his public lecture marking Singapore’s 50th Anniversary as an independent nation.

The associate director of the Center for Social Development urged U.S. senators on Thursday to create long-term asset-building policies and to use such “golden moments” as tax time to urge Americans to save.

While many Americans took a big financial hit during the Great Recession, homeowners were less likely than renters to lose very large proportions of their wealth, finds a new study from the Center for Social Development in the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Financial Capability & Asset Building initiative was highlighted Tuesday during a celebration showcasing four Washington University in St. Louis initiatives funded by a $5.3 million gift from Wells Fargo Advisors.

Two new laws in St. Louis will expand housing options for Section 8 renters in the city. Alderwoman Christine Ingrassia sponsored the measures, which were influenced by recent research at Washington University in St. Louis.​

The Singapore launch of the Next Age Institute is on Monday, February 23, at the National University of Singapore. The event will feature Singapore’s Senior Minister of State Amy Khor as the guest of honor.

Young people from Kansas, Missouri and Illinois gathered to hear Dorothy Stoneman, the founder and CEO of YouthBuild USA Inc., speak about transforming themselves and their communities.

“The real problem is that there has always been more than one version of capitalism,” renowned author, commentator and sociologist Xavier (“Xav”) de Souza Briggs, said Thursday in his speech “Toward a Just and Inclusive America,” at Washington University in St. Louis.

Many of the 40 million older adults in the United States are struggling financially. They lack the assets to see them through their later years, when they require more health care and other services than they expected.

Rhode Island’s treasurer and governor-elect, Gina M. Raimondo, on Dec. 10 announced a policy change to make college savings more accessible for newborn children in that state. In January, it will be as simple as checking a box.

Asian scholars, practitioners and policymakers share lessons about asset-building policies in Asia and chart the future in the new book “Asset-Building Policies and Innovations in Asia.”

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this academic year, the Center for Social Development is expanding by bringing in new leaders and new bodies of work.

The 80 experts attending the event were brought together by a common interest in creating strategies for using the “golden moment” of tax time to help Americans build savings by changing the way consumers make economic decisions.

​Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Ph.D., the associate director of the Center for Social Development and associate professor at the Brown School at Washington University, presented to a visiting delegation of Israeli government officials in New York City.

​Children in four developing countries saved more than $1.8 million during the YouthSave initiative, one of the largest scientific studies of the effect of savings on people ages 12 to 18.

​Li-chen Cheng, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Social Work at National Taiwan University, has rejoined the Brown School for a six-month sabbatical. Between 1990 to 1995, Dr. Cheng studied for her Ph.D. from 1990 to 1995 and worked on projects at CSD.

As the racial wealth gap in the United States continues to broaden, the Southern Regional Asset Building Coalition has emerged with solutions for improving and sustaining communities that have historically high poverty rates and few assets.

Amanda Moore McBride, Ph.D., received an Odyssey Medal from Hendrix College during its Oct. 23 Founders’ Day Convocation. Dr. McBride was honored in the category of “Service to the World.”

As part of the Ferguson & Beyond Lecture Series, Dr. Larry E. Davis, dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh and former Brown School faculty member, will present the talk “The University, the Community, and Race.”

“Financial Capability Practice” — a course based on the Center for Social Development’s new Financial Capability & Asset Building curriculum — begins in January at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work.

The U.S. Treasury Department has awarded a $1.08 million research contract to the Center for Social Development at Washington University’s Brown School. One of 11 contracts awarded nationally under the Financial Empowerment Innovation Fund, this award will fund research on myRA accounts (“My Retirement Accounts”).

Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) have established the Next Age Institute, an international partnership to study, design and test social innovations.

The Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University in St. Louis recognizes that asset-building policies in Asia offer important lessons in lifelong wealth and retirement security. International interest in these policies, particularly regarding aging populations, has prompted a book published in Chinese and one forthcoming in English.

An experiment that models the first truly universal Child Development Account policy in the United States shows early positive impacts for parents and children, according to a research summary recently published by the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis.

One of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs believes a college education has a “multiplier” effect. Students learn material through coursework, and then go out into the world and apply that knowledge, in turn helping and teaching others.

Social workers from around the world traveled to St. Louis in April to join a conversation about policy challenges, policy practice and professional training of social workers.

More than two decades after Michael Sherraden, PhD, wrote Assets and the Poor – introducing asset building as a new social policy framework – that idea has taken off in numerous directions.

The Great Recession and its aftermath — slow recovery, unemployment, underemployment and economic malaise — have produced an era unseen since the Great Depression. In an effort to study causes and find solutions, Washington University in St. Louis faculty from across disciplines are examining economic insecurity through the university’s Livable Lives Initiative.

​The Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis built on an already engaged and productive relationship this month when it co-sponsored a symposium with the Center for Household Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Research shows that a service learning program implemented into middle school curriculum is having an impact on both academic and social behaviors in seventh-graders – particularly those who have been deemed most at risk of difficulties in school.

This week, the state of Maine became the first in the United States to make college savings for newborns universal and automatic, putting into practice research pioneered by Michael Sherraden and the Brown School’s Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis.

Michael Sherraden, PhD, George Warren Brown Distinguished University Professor and director of the Center for Social Development at the Brown School, has been named the inaugural S. R. Nathan Professor at the National University of Singapore.

As the 2014 tax season opens, the Refund to Savings initiative continues with adjustments designed to better understand consumer savings behavior and help more Americans build savings.

​A college savings account in a child’s name not only gives parents hope for the future, it also results in improved social-emotional health for their children.

More than 160 people attended “Generation Debt: the Promise, Perils and Future of Student Loans” at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis on Monday, Nov. 18. The conference was co-sponsored by the St. Louis Fed and the Center for Social Development in the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

As the financial roller coaster continues, those working to close the wealth gap and achieve economic security in the South are working more vigorously than ever.

A new academic survey conducted by The Center for Social Development and national veterans nonprofit The Mission Continues points to community volunteerism as an effective tool for addressing veterans’ reintegration challenges.