Moving Forward from SECURE 2.0: Building on the Law’s Most Effective Provisions, Closing the Access Gap, and Reforming Social Security

Sprick, E. (with Despard, M., & Roll, S.). (2025). Moving forward from SECURE 2.0: Building on the law’s most effective provisions, closing the access gap, and reforming social security. Bipartisan Policy Center. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/download/?file=/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Moving-Forward-from-SECURE-2.0-BPC-CSD-Report.pdf

The Case for Early Wealth Building Accounts

Abstract Aspen FSP research on the Future of Wealth has shown that to succeed in the United States economy, people need to enter adulthood–a life stage when many critical investments are made – with a substantial amount of money to invest in themselves and their future. The importance of what we’re calling “investable sums” in young adulthood […]

HomeGrown StL 5th Annual Regional Summit on the State of Opportunities for Black Boys and Young Men: Organizing for Solutions That Unleash the Elite Potential of Young Black Males

Joe, S., Clifton, M., & Carlton-Brown, D. (2023, May). HomeGrown StL 5th Annual Regional Summit on the State of Opportunity for Black Boys and Young Men: Organizing for solutions that unleash the elite potential of young Black males (CSD Conference Report No. 23-17). Washington University, Center for Social Development, Race & Opportunity Lab, HomeGrown StL. https://doi.org/10.7936/64jx-0x32

“It helped us more than I could have imagined”: How the 2021 Expanded Child Tax Credit Supported Families Raising Children with Disabilities

Summary The 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) provided temporary enhancements to the existing CTC for the tax years 2021 and 2022. Under the expanded credit, families with children under the age of 18 were eligible to receive a credit of up to $3,000 per child ($3,600 for children under the age of 6). In […]

HomeGrown StL 4th Annual Regional Summit on the State of Opportunities for Black Boys and Young Men: Closing the Health, Growth, and Opportunity Gaps

Joe, S., Clifton, M., & Carlton-Brown, D. (2021, December). HomeGrown StL 4th Annual Regional Summit on the State of Opportunities for Black Boys and Young Men: Closing the healing, growth, and opportunity gaps (CSD Conference Report No. 21-34). Washington University, Center for Social Development, Race & Opportunity Lab, HomeGrownStL. https://doi.org/10.7936/cej1-ds84

Impact of COVID-19 on Households with Children

The COVID-19 pandemic caused major disruptions in employment, child care and education. As a result, both parents and children experienced a variety of hardships in their work and education. While these hardships had reverberating effects throughout households, they were not equally distributed across families with children. In this brief, we explore the effects of COVID-19 […]

Housing Hardships During COVID-19

Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. households were burdened by the cost of rental and mortgage payments, burdens which disproportionately fell on Black and Hispanic families. Using a 5-wave survey, we examined whether disparities in housing cost burden continued throughout the pandemic and trends in how households fell behind on rent and mortgage payments. […]

COVID-19 and the Future of Volunteering for Development: Findings from a Study Conducted for the International Forum for Volunteering in Development

Perold, H., Mwathi Mati, J., Alum, C., Lough, B. J., (2021, February). COVID-19 and the future of volunteering for development: Findings from a study conducted for the International Forum for Volunteering in Development [Research Report]. International Forum for Volunteering in Development. https://forum-ids.org/2021/03/covid-19-and-the-future-of-volunteering-for-development-research-report/

The Impact of the Gig-Economy on Financial Hardship among Low-Income Families

New work arrangements coordinated by gig-economy platforms offer workers discretion over their work schedules at the expense of traditional worker protections. We empirically measure the impact of expanding access to gigs on worker welfare, with a focus on low-income families. We are interested in the likelihood that a family experiences hardship, meaning they fail to […]

Will I Be Able to Cast My Ballot? Race, Income, and Voting Access on Election Day

McClendon, G. G., Pitzer, K., Sherraden, M., & Aguilar, A. (with Lieberman, D.). (2019). Will I be able to cast my ballot? Race, income, and voting access on Election Day (CSD Research Report No. 19-36). St. Louis, MO: Washington University, Center for Social Development. https://doi.org/10.7936/y86s-7q32