Category: Media Mention

Research found 16% of job loss or layoffs reported payment difficulties

The story below is a translation from an article printed in Hebrew in Israel Today, the largest newspaper in Israel, on Oct. 5, 2020. A new study published here for the first time examined the effect of the first lockdown on households using 2,300 Israelis from June 4 to early July. The data show that […]

The world will no longer belong to the young: 18 – 39-year-olds were financially affected the worst from the Coronavirus

This story was written by Tali Heruti-Sover and originally published on Oct. 1, 2020 in The Marker in Israel. According to a study conducted by Prof. Michal Grinstein-Weiss at the beginning of the crisis, young people, generations Y and Z, suffer from high unemployment, have difficulty providing basic needs for themselves and their debts are large

Michal Grinstein-Weiss and Marla Blow: Masks aren’t the only answer to keeping workers safe

Michal Grinstein-Weiss, director, SPI, and Marla Blow, vice president, Center for Inclusive Growth, co-author an op-ed highlighting the need for better workplace policies to mitigate exposure to COVID-19. “By addressing longstanding inequalities that have undervalued essential workers, these measures would ensure that no one is put in a position of choosing health over a paycheck.”

Covid-19: Time to look at where we are going

SPI research about job loss is featured in this article on BizNews in which Alan Whiteside, OBE, Chair of Global Health Policy, BSIA, Waterloo, Canada & Professor Emeritus, University of KwaZulu-Natal, looks at the long-term impact of COVID-19.

Quarantine Envy Got You Down? You’re Not Alone

Some groups may also be better than others at resisting envy. A recent Brookings Institution study showed that African-American and Hispanic people, especially those with low incomes, remained more optimistic than their white counterparts, despite facing physical and economic challenges from the pandemic.

Experts Warn of Potential Housing Crisis When Eviction Moratorium Lifted

In an interview with NBC 6, Michal Grinstein-Weiss discussed the housing crisis and looming evictions. She said, “We are already in a housing crisis in the U.S. and we were in one long before, and housing is really central for our people to recover from COVID-19.”

Pandemic boosts urgency of housing instability

The Columbian features SPI data in a story about housing hardship. “Nationally, a survey of low- to moderate-income households, conducted by the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis, found that individuals are facing increased hardships such as evictions, delayed rent or mortgage payments, or unexpected utility payments and home repairs during the pandemic.”

It’s about to get a lot worse

SPI faculty director, Mat Despard, was interviewed in this Axios story about evictions: “We should be very concerned about what’s going to happen in August and beyond.”

Inspired by father who survived Holocaust, Wash U professor aims to help north St. Louis residents

Michal Grinstein-Weiss understands how trauma can have a lasting effect. Her father, Slomo Grinstein, survived the Holocaust by spending years hiding in the woods of Poland while his family was killed at concentration camps. “He always struggled a little bit between jobs — and [the Holocaust] doesn’t leave anyone, and he was never able to fully recover from the trauma,” said Grinstein-Weiss, who grew up in Israel and moved to St. Louis in 1999 to pursue a doctorate in social work. Now she’s the director of the Social Policy Institute at Wash U and working to research and develop policy to help black families in north St. Louis who have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus.

Tracking COVID-19 cases by zip code highlights inequity in St. Louis region

St. Louis on the Air, Sarah Fenske spoke with Washington University’s Dr. Laurie Punch and Michal Grinstein-Weiss, the director of Washington University’s Social Policy Institute and of the Centene Center for Health Transformation. Grinstein-Weiss recently looked into COVID-19 case counts in ZIP codes across the St. Louis region.

United Way extends a financial life raft to employees who need it

United Way is offering TrueConnect, an employee financial wellness program, through a partnership with the National Fund for Workforce Solutions and Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis. It is available to for-profit and nonprofit employers with 100 or more employees.

Research Wire

Bufe, S., Roll, S. P., Kondratjeva, O., Hardy, B., & Grinstein-Weiss, M. (2019). Does Savings Affect Participation in the Gig Economy? Evidence from a Tax Refund Field Experiment (SPI Working Paper 19-1). St. Louis, MO: Washington University, Social Policy Institute.

Financially Stressed Families Save More with Medicaid, Study Shows

Financially burdened families’ savings get a shot in the arm with access to Medicaid, according to a new study from CU Boulder, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Washington University in St. Louis and Diego Portales University in Chile.

How Dan Ariely Sees the Future of Financial Advice

Centene Center Faculty Director and behavior economics researcher, Dan Ariely, PhD, MA, talks with ThinkAdvisor about the future of financial advice and how he sees the role of financial advisor evolving over time. He discusses why the usual motivator of paying people can backfire, as well as why people make irrational decisions regarding their money. Rusoff, J. W.

Social Policy Institute receives $385,000 grant

The newly established Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis has received a $385,000 grant from JPMorgan Chase & Co. as part of the company’s $125 million, five-year global commitment to promoting customers’ financial health.

New consumer protection director to speak June 12

Kathy Kraninger, who was named director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) six months ago, spoke about the bureau’s new directions and initiatives in savings policy in Hillman Hall’s Clark-Fox Forum. Michal Grinstein-Weiss, professor in Brown School and SPI director, will oversee a panel focused on the importance of savings in economically vulnerable communities.

Where Do You Get Your Health Information?

In a recent study conducted by the Centene Center for Health Transformation, Medicaid, and commercially insured individuals shared their top resources for learning about health topics. Not surprising, both groups communicated that their top three sources were the Internet, doctors/healthcare providers, and valued personal supporters such as family members of friends, preferably those with health-related training like nurses.

The Connection between Unmet Social Needs, Stress, and Health

Research results from a recent study completed by the Centene Center for Health Transformation show that the more unmet social needs someone has, the more barriers to self-care, worse health behaviors, and worse health outcomes they experience.

Behavioral Factors Impacting Diabetes

This Centene Center for Health Transformation™ video highlights the growing diabetes epidemic and the Centene Center’s collaborative research on the behavioral factors that impact diabetes management.

Participation is high in Israel’s universal CDA program, the first in the world

Schoenherr, N. A new analysis by the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis examines enrollment and participation trends in a newly implemented national Israeli child development account (CDA) policy, finding that 65 percent of households actively enrolled in the program during the first six months.

Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD Inducted into American Academy of Social Work

Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD, MA, MSW, Director of the Centene Center for Health Transformation, was recently inducted into the American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare (AASWSW). The AASWSW is an honorific society of distinguished scholars and practitioners dedicated to achieving excellence in the field of social work and social welfare through high-impact work that advances social good.

Breaking Down Barriers to Better Health

A new short-format video produced through Centene’s industry-academia partnership, the Centene Center for Health Transformation™, sets the stage for current and future investigation into the impact of social determinants on health behaviors and health outcomes.

Obamacare helps people make mortgage payments and rent, study concludes

The passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act provided many more Americans access to health insurance, but Obamacare’s legacy goes beyond medicine. According to new research, greater access to health insurance also leads to a significant reduction in Americans becoming delinquent on rent and mortgage payments. Riquier, A.

Fresh Food Rx Secures Food for Healthy Moms and Babies

A collaboration between SSM Health DePaul Hospital and Operation Food Search connects obstetrics patients in the St. Louis area with nutritious food and other necessities to promote healthy pregnancies and improve birth outcomes for mothers and babies.

The View from Here 1.23.19

Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Associate Dean for Policy Initiatives and professor at the Brown School, recently represented Washington University in St. Louis at the University Social Responsibility Summit, co-hosted by the University of Haifa, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Niemeyer, K.

Hope You Aren’t Counting on Getting a Tax Refund This Winter

While the Trump administration has pledged that the Internal Revenue Service will still issue tax refunds, recent changes to the tax code will make that promise difficult to keep, especially with regard to these critical refunds. As the shutdown stretches on, people who depend on the EITC for relief may face serious hardship. Capps, K.

Health insurance or house payments? Obamacare means many poor Americans are able to pay their rent and mortgages on time by reducing health care costs, study shows

Researchers from University of Colorado at Boulder and Washington University in St. Louis analyzed three years of tax data and survey responses from 15,000 people to test the effect of having health insurance among low-income Americans. They found that low-income people who purchased health care through an Obamacare marketplace were 25 percent less likely than poor Americans without health insurance to miss housing payments. Bauman, V.

Five things to know about Financial Wellness Programs

According to a 2017 survey by benefits consultants Alight Solutions, almost 25 percent of employers have a financial wellness program in place, and almost half are in the process of creating one. Some three out of four firms with more than 10,000 employees now offer a financial wellness program, according to a recent study by the Employee Benefits Research Institute. Wasik, J.

Test the Psychology behind Food Indulgences: How We Trick Ourselves into Thinking Overeating Is Fine and That We’ll Bounce Back Quickly

New research from the Duke researchers at the Centene Center for Health Transformation™, published this month in the journal Appetite, explains how our lay beliefs, or naïve models, lead us to faulty assumptions about how our “dietary splurges” impact our weight, resulting in a lack of compensation following these indulgences and self-serving biases.

Growing old is nice, but boy is it costly

Half of Americans have no retirement savings, according to a Brookings Institution article of three years ago. Hasty reactions to market fluctuations result in escalating debt, according to Michael Grinstein-Weiss, associate professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis and associate director of the Center for Social Development. Shea-Taylor, B.