Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the first Conference on Children and Youth Savings sponsored by CFED, a national organization dedicated to expanding economic opportunity for all Americans. According to CFED,

People who own assets–such as a savings account–are more likely to have a more positive outlook and higher expectations for their futures and the futures of their children.

Children and youth savings accounts are created, mostly for low- and moderate-income children, at birth (or later in some programs) and initially funded with a small government contribution. As the child grows, additional contributions from family, friends, and, in some cases governments, help the account grow. Some programs limit use of the funds to education, while others offer broader opportunities or no limitations at all once the child reaches age 18. The theory behind children and youth savings accounts is:

• that low-income students (and their parents) will begin to see college as an achievable and affordable goal;
• that a savings habit learned in childhood is an asset for life;
• that youth savings will build assets for education, home ownership, and business start-ups; and
• that benefits of saving and investing by children help grow community and national economies.

CFED has been the main player in the SEED Initiative, a 10-year program to develop, test, inform, and promote children savings accounts. SEED incorporates 12 demonstration projects, including one in Oklahoma. The conference brought together a couple of hundred local service providers, funding agencies, government managers, and researchers in an effort to assess SEED and other efforts and to help figure out what comes next.

I got a decidedly mixed picture about children’s savings accounts from this experience. Here’s the good news: Read the rest of this entry »

Over the course of the last several years, employers have begun to take a more active interest in their employees’ physical fitness. You hear more and more about companies, such as Chesapeake, that will even go as far as giving financial incentives for living healthy lifestyles. Companies will offer seminars or host lunch-and-learns about how to become more healthy. They may even pay for or subsidize gym memberships. Companies are doing this because they realized that their employees were getting increasingly unhealthy, which was leading to loss of productivity due to sick days taken and to increases in insurance premiums for the companies. However, the physical health of their employees is not the only health in which companies may want to take an interest.

According to USA Today, the number one cause of stress in the workplace is personal finances. In fact, a study conducted by Virginia Tech found that the average worker spends 21 hours per month handling personal financial issues while on the job. As the recent economic situation unfolds around the globe, the stress levels of employees is likely to be increasing as well. Employers may see a mutual benefit to initiating some sort of financial wellness program, the way some companies have done with physical wellness. In fact, some local companies have done just that and provide great examples for others.
Read the rest of this entry »