Financial security – being able to meet basic needs, cope with unexpected events, build assets, and experience economic mobility – enables individuals and families to be full and active participants in society. Due to this, the financial security of households drives economic growth and shared prosperity. By understanding and evaluating policies that promote equity and financial security, the Social Policy Institute supports a future where individuals and families can achieve financial stability and experience upward social mobility.
The Social Policy Institute finds innovative and scalable solutions to support financial security of individuals and families through practice, policy, and institutional change.
Research projects vary from working with local community partners to implement behavioral interventions to analyzing the impact of nationwide policies, such as the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit. Financial security research also includes identifying, implementing, and testing innovative financial technology program solutions, evaluating strategies to promote financial inclusion, and understanding the role that savings, credit, and debt play in driving household financial well-being. Through our Workforce Financial Stability Initiative (WFSI), we also examine the relationship between employer-level decisions around pay, scheduling, and benefits, and the financial security of low-wage and frontline workers.
Our Financial Security Initiatives
Job Quality and Managerial Practices
Research Agenda
The Job Quality and Managerial Practices research agenda examines how employers can redesign jobs and employment practices to improve the financial stability of their frontline workers.
Managing Cashflow
The PerkUp CAFÉ program was launched in October 2020. The experiment tests whether need-based consumption can be encouraged through an unconditional cash transfer (UCT) as opposed to traditional means testing (e.g. making workers document financial need).
Managing Debt
This four-part experiment to test the best way of achieving this goal. Interventions will include SMS payment reminders, simple goal setting and reminders, and finally, a “financial health first-aid kit” which will remind participants of their goals with personalized SMS reminders.
myRA Savings Program
Research Agenda
In a collaborative project with the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Intuit, Inc., a team of SPI researchers explored methods of promoting the myRA (My Retirement Account) savings program at tax time—when households file their taxes. It focused specifically on opportunities in an online tax-filing setting and in person at Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites.
National surveys on CTC impacts
In order to understand the impact of the Child Tax Credit on American families, the Social Policy Institute released a nationally representative survey with a control group of non-eligible families and individuals.
Refund to Savings (R2S)
Financial Security
Refund to Savings (R2S) is a nationwide tax-time experiment testing the effect of incorporating behavioral economics-based messages and strategies into the tax-filing process to increase tax refund savings.
Research Response to COVID-19
Socioeconomic Impact of COVID-19 Survey
COVID-19 has dramatically shifted the world, and applying lessons learned during the pandemic will be critical as we not only rebuild our economy, but make it more equitable, too.
Small Businesses and COVID-19
Research Agenda
The WFSI team is conducting a survey of 350 small business owners (SBOs) in customer-facing (e.g., food services, childcare) industries which have experienced revenue decreases and missed loan payments above the national average
State-by-state analysis
These briefs use data from the Census Household Pulse survey to examine how a representative sample of CTC-eligible families making less than $150,000 a year report using their payments. This survey was administered between July 21 and August 16, covering the period in which the first two CTC payments were deposited in families’ bank account. These fact sheets include key data on CTC receipt, payment usage, and changes in families’ food security after the payments went out.
Workforce Financial Stability Initiative (WFSI)
Financial Security
Established in 2017, the Workforce Financial Stability Initiative (WFSI) seeks to understand how frontline employees’ work conditions and benefits affect their financial stability and to identify and test workplace innovations to improve these conditions.
Latest Publications
The Case for Early Wealth Building Accounts
How Would Americans Respond to Direct Cash Transfers? Results from Two Survey Experiments
