The next lecture in the Practice and Policy Lecture Series, sponsored in part by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS), will focus on these issues and on the power of asset-building as an anti-poverty strategy.  The lectures, “Benchmarking Asset Development in Fighting Poverty,” will be held Thursday, January 12th from Noon to 1 p.m. in the Chesapeake Room of the Oklahoma History Center, 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive in Oklahoma City.  Attendees will hear from Dr. David Blatt, Director of Oklahoma Policy Institute and Steven Shepelwich, Senior Community Development Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Dr. Blatt helped found OK Policy and became the Director in 2010.  He was recognized as one of the state’s leading experts on fiscal policy and is one of the Tulsa World’s five “Oklahomans to Watch” in 2011.  Steven Shepelwich leads Branch efforts to promote economic development and fair and impartial access to financial services in Oklahoma’s low- to moderate-income communities. Both Steven and David were in involved in founding Oklahoma Assets, an organization that advocates for policies and programs that can help create a more inclusive economy.

Click here for more information about the event and featured speakers.

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This year’s conference will arm educators, advocates and teachers with the information they need to identify and prevent financial cons, scams and frauds, and ideas for presenting this information to the communities and students they serve.  The conference is designed for: financial educators, teachers, bank and credit union staff, business and civic leaders, and all other individuals interested in improving financial education in Oklahoman.

Click here to register online or contact Annette Phillips at Annette.F.Phillips@kc.frb.org or (405)270-8464 by Tuesday, October 25. The $25 registration fee includes a continental breakfast and lunch buffet.  The event agenda can be accessed here.

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The FRB of Kansas City conducts a quarterly survey of non-profit and community organizations that serve low- and moderate-income (LMI) populations in the Tenth District.* Respondents are asked about the economic conditions of the clients they serve. The results are used to construct indices measuring the financial condition, service needs, jobs availability, affordable housing, and credit access of LMI populations.  The June report found conditions continuing to worsen for LMI populations in the 2nd quarter of 2011, although in some sectors the gap between the number of respondents reporting things are getting worse and those reporting things getting better is narrowing :

• The Financial Condition Index, which is the broadest measure of the financial health of the LMI population, revealed significant deterioration. The report states that, “Persistent unemployment, diminished credit standing, and rising costs for basic needs were noted as impediments to financial recovery in the LMI community.”
• The Service Needs Index revealed growing demands for services by organizations serving the LMI population. Increased demand was attributed to rising costs for essential items, an exhaustion of financial resources by the long-term unemployed, and a rash of natural disasters, including flooding and tornadoes.
• The Jobs Availability, Affordable Housing, and Credit Access indices all showed slight improvements in the latest report but remain in negative territory. In the employment arena, “District contacts observed that employers in the LMI community have been relying heavily on part-time workers and that pay and hours have been reduced for many.” In the area of affordable housing, impediments included tighter mortgage lending standards and reductions in government funds available to assist LMI families buy homes. Regarding credit, poor credit histories and other obstacles to affordable credit have led to reports of greater borrowing from payday lenders.

In addition to questions about their clients, respondents also reported on the strength of their own organizations, which were aggregated into two additional indices: the Organization Funding Index and the Organization Capacity Index. Most organizations reported a worsening of their financial situation. The report notes:

While many contributors made efforts to maintain their giving during the recession and early recovery, donations have waned as they have struggled to meet other financial obligations. Recent government budget cuts have exacerbated the funding situation.

The survey not only found that the situation of low- and moderate-income clients and organizations had worsened in the past quarter, it also found general pessimism about the direction things were expected to go in the months ahead. In particular, little faith in the economic recovery  and the expectation of persistent federal, state, and local budget cuts are dampening the outlook of those who serve low- and moderate-income populations.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City was the first of the Fed’s regional banks to conduct a survey specifically exploring conditions for low- and moderate-income populations, a path which several other banks have now followed. Although the results of the survey should be interpreted with caution – the indices are based on responses from some 100 to 150 organizations and are a measure of the perception, rather than the actual prevalence, of hardship – they clearly suggest that the recession to date has been far too weak to lift up those huddled on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder.

* The Tenth Federal Reserve District encompasses Oklahoma, western Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Colorado, and northern New Mexico. LMI individuals have incomes below 80 percent of the area median income, which is defined as the metropolitan median income for urban residents and state median income for rural residents

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As home foreclosures continue to rise across the United States, loan modification scams are increasing at an alarming rate. Loan modification scams in Oklahoma have a devastating impact on families and communities.  A free luncheon event, “Loan Modification Scam Alert Summit” in Tulsa on Friday, April 8 from 11:30 -2:00pm will shed some light on the growing problem and share tools and resources to help combat loan scams.

The summit is sponsored by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Oklahoma City Branch, NeighborWorks America, the Oklahoma Homebuyer Education Association and Oklahoma Assets.  The summit will provide you with:

• Knowledge of foreclosure and loan modification scams,
• Tools and resources to protect you and your community, and
• Opportunity to network with service providers and community leaders engaged in this effort

The hosts encourage elected officials, community and faith-based leaders and housing agency representatives to support solutions that are reducing the devastating impact loan modification scams are having in Oklahoma.  The event will be held at the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in downtown Tulsa on April 8 from 11:30 -2:00pm.  RSVP to Emerson Hall at Emhall@fdic.org by Thursday, March 31. Due to space limitations, pre-registration is required.

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This event is the first in a series of webinars produced by Oklahoma Assets, a coalition that aims to identify and strengthen programs and policies that help Oklahoma residents achieve economic security.  For more information about this event and the continuing series click here or email info@oklahomaassets.org

Steve Shepelwich (Community Development Officer of the Oklahoma City Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City) will lead off the webinar by introducing the Oklahoma Assets Coalition and explaining their interest in promoting savings.  The second speaker, David Blatt (Director of Oklahoma Policy Institute) will focus on the importance of savings and barriers that can hinder adequate savings.  Kristi Coker follows with a (Executive Director of the Citizen Potawatomie Nation Community Development Corporation) discussion of innovative products and programs the Nation has developed to promote savings for low- and moderate-income individuals and families.  Finally, Don Baylor (Senior Policy Analyst with the Center for Public Policy Priorities) will finish with the importance of state policies for promoting savings and share some of the policy successes that advocates have enjoyed in Texas.

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The conference will feature a keynote address by Kelvin Boston, a respected financial journalist, public speaker and best-selling author. He is the executive producer and host of Moneywise with Kelvin Boston, public television’s longest running multi-cultural financial affairs television series that explores the role of culture, race and gender. Boston is the author of Smart Money Moves for African Americans and Who’s Afraid To Be A Millionaire?

Other national speakers include:

• Dr. Billy Hensley, National Endowment for Financial Education, on professional development strategies for educators;
• Dr. Urvi Neelakantan, The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, on the impact of gender;
• Dr. Joyce Serido, Take Charge America Institute at the University of Arizona, on financial behaviors of youth and college students;
• Dr. Janice Wassel,American Institute of Financial Gerontology, on the needs of the elderly.

Click here to register, or contact Steve Shepelwich for additional information at steven.shepelwich@kc.frb.org.

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After almost 8 years as the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), Rick Cohen began writing for Nonprofit Quarterly magazine (NPQ), the nation’s premier journal of nonprofit policy and practice, as NPQ’s national correspondent in 2006. His writing for NPQ and other outlets advocates for increased philanthropic giving and access for disadvantaged and disenfranchised constituencies.

To attend this free event, RSVP by July 9, 2010 to Annette Phillips at annette.f.phillips@kc.frb.org or (405) 270-8464. Refreshments will be served.

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The May 18th video cast will be from 1:00 to 3:00 pm at the Federal Reserve Bank’s Oklahoma City office, located at 226 Dean A. McGee Avenue.  The event is free and open to the public; however, attendees are asked to RSVPat their earliest convenience to Annette Phillips at annette.f.phillips@kc.frb.org or (405) 270-8486. Refreshments will be served.

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• The U.S. economy is very weak, but may be nearing the bottom. While unemployment is expected to rise even further over the coming months and Gross Domestic Product for 2009 may fall by the greatest amount in over 30 years, the declines may be stabilizing.
• The latest projections of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market committee are for “real GDP… to flatten out gradually over the second half of this year and then to expand slowly next year as the stresses in financial markets ease, the effects of fiscal stimulus take hold, inventory adjustments are worked through, and the correction in housing activity comes to an end.”
• Oklahoma was late to the economic downturn, but we are now shedding jobs at the same dismal rate as the nation as a whole, as can be seen from the chart.



Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City

• Oklahoma’s unemployment rate has soared from 3.8 percent to 5.9 percent in just the past six months. Other indicators of of economic distress, such as home prices, foreclosures, and delinquent loans confirm that the recession is now in full swing locally (The Fed’s website presents a number of key economic indicators for Oklahoma through February; also, see our most recent Numbers You Need for an overview of economic trends).

However, Wilkerson contends that it is likely that the recession will not be as long or as deep in Oklahoma as in the nation as a whole. He presented a chart (which I haven’t been able to locate online) comparing the average length of national recessions in Oklahoma relative to the nation over the period from 1957-2003. Historically, Oklahoma enters a national recession considerably later than the nation as a whole, as a result of energy prices staying high during the recession’s early stages. By the time the recession hits the Sooner State, federal policymakers have usually had time to adopt corrective monetary and fiscal policies, which benefit Oklahoma as much as states that have endured longer and more acute pain. As a result, we tend to emerge out of recession at about the same time as, or a little earlier than, everyone else. Overall, our recessions on average have been a full two quarters shorter than the full nation’s.

Certainly, the current recession is conforming to the pattern on the front-end. When I asked Wilkerson whether he expected the recession to get as bad here as elsewhere, he responded that it depends on how long the downturn lasts. Since our economy in recent months is declining more steeply than the nation’s, our unemployment rate, for example, could catch up to the national average over the course of a prolonged downturn. But if the historical pattern holds, it is likelier that the bottom will not be as low here as elsewhere and we will begin to see jobs and economic growth recover at about the same time and at a similar pace to the nation.

What does the Fed’s view mean for Oklahoma’s budget outlook? If we are already nearing the bottom of the economic downturn, it suggests that we may start pulling out of the budget shortfall sooner than we have been thinking. If that’s the case we should put every effort into maintaining essential public services next year so we have a strong base to build on as the recovery begins.

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