Category: News

Material hardship among lower-income households: The role of liquid assets and place

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.

Event Replay: Jump-Starting America: How Investing in Technology & Science Revives Economies

The Social Policy Institute at Washington University and the Center for Household Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis invite you to a virtual conversation at 1 p.m. on June 4 with Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson, authors of Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream. Gruber […]

A message from Michal Grinstein-Weiss, director of SPI

Dear Friends, These are dark days in our nation’s history. At a time when we are trying to respond to a global health pandemic and its disproportionate health and economic toll on families of color, we are witnessing endless injustices and brutality against black and brown civilians. It is appalling and astounding. And the similarities […]

Housing Hardships Reach Unprecedented Heights during the COVID-19 Pandemic

SPI research, published on Brookings Institution: Groundbreaking data from a new large-scale, nationally-representative survey of low- and moderate-income (LMI) households administered by the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis in April of 2020 suggests that individuals have been facing increased housing hardship such as evictions, delayed rent or mortgage payments, and unexpected utility payments and home repairs during the pandemic.

SPI researchers win top awards for papers at ACCI Conference

Yingying Zeng, Mathieu Despard, and Sophia Fox-Dichter received the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) Paper Award for their paper “Workplace Financial Counseling: Credit Outcomes Among Lower-Paid, Entry-Level Workers”.

Stephen P. Roll, Blair D. Russell, Dana C. Perantie, and Michal Grinstein-Weiss received the JCA Best Article of the Year for their paper “Encouraging Tax‐Time Savings with a Low‐Touch, Large‐Scale Intervention: Evidence from the Refund to Savings Experiment”.

Employees are stressed about money. Financial wellness benefits can help. (Links to an external site)

The National Fund for Workforce Solutions and the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis have collaborated on a new Guide to Employee Financial Wellness to help employers identify the best program for their team. The guide combines four years of research and best practices collected from a wide range of employers using employee financial wellness programs.

Messaging matters when it comes to COVID-19 economic impact payments

The way policymakers and financial capability practitioners communicate about the CARES economic impact payments and other current or future payments may help guide households to use these benefits in the way best suited to their financial situation. This is important because while some households may use the CARES payments to pay down debt and other households may be fortunate enough to be able to save their payments, others will need these payments to simply make ends meet.

Inspired by father who survived Holocaust, Wash U professor aims to help north St. Louis residents (Links to an external site)

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.

We don’t need a map to tell us who COVID-19 hits the hardest in St. Louis

We don’t need a map to tell us that policymakers, health officials, corporations, and St. Louis residents themselves must continue to break down economic barriers to create partnerships and solutions that support the most vulnerable in our city – those who were already facing a disproportionate social, financial, and health burden prior to COVID-19 entering their lives.

What tax refunds tell us about how households might use economic impact payments

While economic impact payments are different than a tax refund, we can be fairly confident, based on this research, that in this moment of emergency, payments from CARES Act will be used on essential purchases. It is also possible households will allocate their economic impact payments to clear debt entirely or to make a minimum payment in order to keep some liquid assets in checking or savings.

Social Policy Institute, McDonnell International Scholars Academy award $10,000 seed grants to three research proposals

Social Policy Institute and McDonnell International Scholars Academy have jointly announced the selection of three international policy-focused proposals to receive $10,000 seed grants following a call for proposals in September 2019. The selected proposals will develop research that fosters international collaboration on policy projects and includes faculty from both Washington University and an international university.

Financial Well-being: Measuring Financial Perceptions and Experiences in Low- and Moderate- Income Households (Links to an external site)

Abstract As the gig economy plays an increasingly important role in the labor market, there is a need to understand the economic factors that influence participation in this sector. In this paper, we investigate how saving the federal tax refund affects gig economy participation for low-income online tax filers in the six months following tax […]

Call for Proposals for Seed Grant Program

The new Social Policy Institute at Washington University and the McDonnell Academy are seeking proposals for collaboration between Washington University researchers and researchers at international universities. The Social Policy Institute’s focus on cross-sector collaboration and international research is a natural complement to the McDonnell Academy’s emphasis on incubating domestic and international research talent and strengthening […]

How Dan Ariely Sees the Future of Financial Advice (Links to an external site)

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.

New consumer protection director to speak June 12 (Links to an external site)

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? (Links to an external site)

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.

Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD Inducted into American Academy of Social Work (Links to an external site)

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 (Links to an external site)

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.

Health Education and Behavior Publishes Centene Center for Health Transformation Research Examining Social Needs and Health Outcomes (Links to an external site)

Unmet basic needs — which include but are not limited to food, housing and utilities — have long been associated with a range of negative health-related outcomes. New research by the Centene Center for Health Transformation now confirms that people with multiple unmet needs have even worse health outcomes.