Savings and assets — like an emergency fund, college fund and homeownership — offer families financial stability and the capacity to turn their children’s dreams into plans.
These resources function as a security blanket of the family’s own design. Without them, everyday challenges can quickly snowball into a crisis with permanent consequences, such as a lost job or impossibly large debts. Kids with a savings account in their name also behave differently — they are substantially more likely to go to college compared to their non-saving peers, according to research.
“Investing in Tomorrow: Helping Families Build Savings and Assets” reports that modest federal investment in universal children’s savings accounts could reduce the wealth gap among young white, Black and Latino households by 20% to 80%.
Featured
This blog post checks in on the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Southern Partnership to Reduce Debt, a multiyear, multistate effort that is entering its third year and aims to ease the debt burdens of families in the South.
