Center for Family Economic Success Resources

The following resources are related to the Center for Family Economic Success. 

• Center for Family Economic Success Newsletter - Activities, developments, and resources in the four major strategy areas of Casey's Center for Family Economic Success – asset building, family economic supports, workforce development, and responsible redevelopment.
• Workforce Development - Resources related to the skills and education needed to get good jobs and build careers.
• Asset Building - Resources address strategies to help families build wealth and save for the future.
• Rural Family Economic Success - Data on families living in rural areas and strategies to promote their economic success.
• CFES in Action: Feature Stories - Programs across the country are using the Center for Family Economic Success approach to build strong financial futures for families and communities.
  
  

  Featured Center for Family Economic Success Publications

  Resources below are listed by publication date.

Weathering the Recession: The Financial Crisis and Family Wealth Changes in Low-Income Neighborhoods

Assets help families meet short-term needs and attain long-term goals, assisting them in weathering financial crises — job loss or unexpected bills — and realizing goals such as owning a home, financing retirement or investing in higher education or a small business. The recent financial crisis has shown both the importance of asset building and that it is by no means a risk-free proposition. This report sheds more light on how families have fared during the Great Recession, looking more closely at those living in low-income neighborhoods who may see disproportionate effects from the crisis due to targeted subprime lending, less access to traditional credit sources and higher unemployment rates. It uses the variation in household and neighborhood characteristics within and across several low-income neighborhoods that were part of the Foundation’s Making Connections initiative to identify the families most affected by the crisis and examines the relationship between household and place characteristics and changes in wealth. more >>

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Building Assets, Strengthening Families in Baltimore

This report provides an overview of the key components of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s financial stability activities for low-income families in Baltimore and, increasingly, the state of Maryland. It is a case study of how this multipronged strategy has been developed and implemented in Baltimore and offers insights for others doing this important work in their communities.  more >>

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Strengthening Workplace Education Program Policies to Enable Low-Wage Workers’ Advancement

This policy brief revisits a few programs covered in an earlier report on workplace education programs, and highlights other programs that improve basic skills, literacy and english language skills. more >>

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Ten Years of the EITC Movement: Making Work Pay Then and Now

This report discusses why the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is an important credit for America’s working families because it encourages work and reduces poverty. more >>

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Improving Access to Work Supports: Strengthening State Policies and Practices

The brief discusses the central role that states play in the delivery of work supports to low-income working families and how policies can be changed to not only increase access to these supports, but to also foster economic family stability and asset building. more >>

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The Landscape of Recession: Unemployment and Safety Net Services Across Urban and Suburban America

The report looks at the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)program trends among urban and suburban communities following the recession. more >>

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A Better Budget for All

This reports examines the need to focus on the policies that will hasten the economic recovery and build a strong foundation for our shared future. more >>

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Improving the Delivery of Key Work Supports: Policy & Practice Opportunities at a Critical Moment

Struggling families who could benefit from various human services programs are often deterred by the multiple application processes. This report provides a catalogue of specific options states can pursue and reviews some best practices. more >>

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Responding to the New Geography of Poverty: Metropolitan Trends in the Earned Income Tax Credit

This report explores the connections between shifts in the population and changes in the numbers of those who filed for the EITC, a refundable tax credit that boosts the take-home pay of low-income Americans, between 1999 and 2007. more >>

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Child Care Choices of Low-Income Working Families

This study examines how low-income working families choose child care and what factors are involved. It includes interviews with 86 low-income families in two urban communities to determine how their decisions are shaped when choosing a child care provider. more >>

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Building Economic Security in America's Cities: New Municipal Strategies for Asset Building and Financial Empowerment

This report highlights successful strategies implemented to help families achieve self-sufficiency by saving money, leveraging those savings into assets and having access to fair credit. more >>

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How Far Would You Drive for Fresh Food? How Some Rural New Hampshire Residents Navigate a Dismal Food Landscape

Lack of access to grocery stores with healthy and affordable food is one of the central obstacles to eradicating hunger in America. This report examines how the challenges play out with mothers in New Hampshire. more >>

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Turning the Tide: Five Years of Achieving the Dream in Community Colleges

This report examines the outcomes at the first 26 colleges to join the national initiative designed to increase the academic success of low-income community college students. more >>

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Supporting Vulnerable Children and Families: Innovative Approaches for Individual Philanthropists and Small Family Foundations

This report looks at new ideas for ways philanthropists can partner across sectors in order to solve some of society’s most intractable problems. more >>

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Upside Down: The $400 Billion Federal Asset-Building Budget

More than half of the $400 billion in benefits go to the top 5 percent of taxpayers, those earning more than $167,000. Meanwhile, low-income families get next to nothing. This report looks at the upside down set of tax subsidies at a time when the economic downturn has left many low- and middle-income families struggling to get by. more >>

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Initial Results from the New York Noncustodial Parent EITC

New York enacted an earned income tax credit (EITC) program for noncustodial parents (parents who do not have physical custody of at least one of their children), becoming the first state in the country to enact this type of tax credit.This brief discusses the program’s design, adoption, and initial results. more >>

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The Recession Generation: Preventing Long-term Damage from Child Poverty and Young Adult Joblessness

This report looks at areas Congress should focus on in order to address continuing need and help the Recession Generation and our country as a whole achieve a more prosperous future. more >>

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Next Steps for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families

This report looks at the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and lessons learned from the recession, ideas for the future, and insights upcoming congressional reauthorization. more >>

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Pursuit of the Dream: Building Credit for Life (Video)

A good credit rating will save the average borrower $250,000 in interest over a lifetime. But some 70 million Americans either have poor credit scores or no credit history at all. The documentary includes tips for building a good score and for avoiding money traps that can drag down credit ratings. more >>

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Center for Family Economic Success

In 2010, Casey established the Center for Family Economic Success, combining the workforce and asset-building investments the Foundation has long pursued with a place-based approach to moving children and families out of poverty. This brief provides a description of the integrated work, strategies to be used, and what influence the approach has had on policymakers and philanthropy. more >>

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Fueling Fair Practices: A Road Map to Improved Public Policy For Used Car Sales and Financing (Executive Summary)

This executive summary highlights a new report from the National Consumer Law Center on the problems and inequities existing in the current used car sales market and how it impacts families' economic stability. more >>

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Racial and Ethnic Disparities among Low-Income Families

The Urban Institute uses the 2008 Current Population Survey to assess the characteristics of low-income families by race and ethnicity. more >>

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Diversifying the Economy to Create Jobs and Help Families Prosper in South Dakota

Facing the common rural challenges of outmigration and a dying agricultural-based economy, the residents of Howard, South Dakota and the surrounding county looked to the economic engines of the future to create employment opportunities and increase income. From developing wind energy-related businesses to organic beef production, Miner County has re-energized its citizens, revitalized its economy, and recaptured some former community members. more >>

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Still Working Hard, Still Falling Short: New Findings on the Challenges Confronting America’s Workers

This analysis of U.S. Census data includes suggestions on how the government can adopt public polices that develop adult workers so that they can participate in the workforce and thereby strengthen their families. more >>

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How Households Expect to Cope in a Financial Emergency

Using data from the Making Connections Cross-Site Survey, this report examines how households with incomes over $30,000 and those with incomes below $30,000 would respond in a financial emergency. more >>

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Quality in EITC Campaigns: Results from the 2008 Tax Season

This new study presents an evaluation of the effectiveness of the on-line training and review process at 12 free tax preparation sites in four campaigns affiliated with the National Tax Assistance for Working Families Campaign launched by the Casey Foundation in 2003. The study found that on-site quality review made a clear difference, leading to a reduction in the number of errors by 75 percent at repeat sites. more >>

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Expanding College and Job-Skills Opportunities in Western Maine

In Franklin County, Maine, a group of local leaders has brought community college classes and jobs skills training to their area, giving residents new opportunities to qualify for good jobs and higher expectations for their futures. It is also providing employers—and prospective employers—with a new supply of well-educated workers. more >>

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Children's 2008 Budget: Fact Sheet

In an effort to draw attention to trends in decreased federal funding for children, First Focus published Children’s Budget 2008. This fact sheet highlights trends and statistics as delineated in the publication. more >>

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Children's Budget 2008

In an effort to draw attention to trends in decreased federal funding for children, First Focus published Children’s Budget 2008. This publication serves as a comprehensive guide to over 180 different federally-funded children’s programs as well as serves a helpful resource for all advocates, policymakers, and program administrators who support improving the well-being of America’s children. more >>

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Institute for Justice's Clinic on Entrepreneurship: Program Profile

Supervised by experienced attorneys, law students have provided intensive, extended assistance to help more than 150 low- and moderate-income entrepreneurs create or expand a business. Most businesses are minority-owned and have employees besides the owner. Casey has provided core operating support since the Clinic was created at the University of Chicago Law School. more >>

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The Working Poor Families Project: Promoting Economic Self-Sufficiency as a State TANF Outcome

As states reexamine their TANF programs under the new law, they have the opportunity to redirect program activities and outcomes toward economic self-sufficiency. This brief reviews how states can establish economic self-sufficiency as a goal for TANF leavers and measures success and related outcomes on a routine basis. more >>

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The Money Trap [ VHS English ]

This video presents the real-life stories of people meeting a variety of financial challenges: a hard working immigrant trying to establish credit and open a bank account; a working single mother with two children trying to get off welfare and buy a home; a married couple with a new baby, developing a plan to climb out of debt; and a young working woman overwhelmed with a high interest payday loan. more >>

Card-Based Remittances: A Closer Look at Supply and Demand

This report examines the extent to which prepaid card-based remittances are emerging as another solution for international money transfers. more >>

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Increasing The Return: Investing in Mississippi's Working Families

Pennsylvania is well positioned to create a new era of growth that delivers opportunity and security for all. This report examines policy recommendations essential to boost economic security from Erie to Philadelphia, Greene County to Monroe County. more >>

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Increasing the Availability of Affordable Homes: A Handbook for State and Local Leaders, Fact Sheet

This fact sheet highlights the main points of the full handbook "Increasing the Availability of Affordable Homes: A Handbook for State and Local Leaders." more >>

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The Working Poor Families Project: Strengthening State Policies to Increase the Education and Skills of Low-Wage Workers

This policy brief reviews policies and programs developed by states that have worked to increase the skill levels of the low-wage workforce. Included in this brief are recommendations on how states can improve workforce development training efforts to further benefit these workers. more >>

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Strengthening Workforce Policy: Applying the Lessons of the Jobs Initiative to Five Key Challenges

This report identifies five central problems that confront policymakers who are interested in improving workforce development programs. Based on lessons learned from the Jobs Initiative, an eight-year Casey Foundation workforce initiative launched in 1995, the report outlines specific policy actions to address these challenges. The report focuses on policy at the local, state, and federal levels. more >>

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Earned Income Tax Credits: Lessons Learned

Since 2003, the Casey Foundation has worked with funders, nonprofits and other organizations around the country on a national tax assistance campaign to encourage and assist qualified tax filers to claim the earned income tax credit (EITC). A new report documents key lessons learned by the local campaigns and provides valuable insights on the EITC and asset building, engaging policymakers, improving quality, and more more >>

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A Workforce Development Triad: Federal Education Tax Credits, Community-Based Organizations, and Community Colleges

This report examines how community-based organizations that serve low-income clients might leverage the education tax credits as a workforce development tool by better connecting them to postsecondary education and other career advancement training. more >>

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What Are They and How Do I Use Them? A Toolkit to Increase and Improve Filing of the Federal Hope and Lifetime Learning Education Tax Credits by Low-Income Filers

This kit includes several tools to increase awareness of the education tax credits, and provides worksheets and guidance on how to correctly file for the credits.  more >>

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What Are They and How Do I Use Them? Strategies and Tools to Increase and Improve Filing of the Federal Hope and Lifetime Learning Education Tax Credits by Low-Income Filers

This report highlights strategies on how to apply for and use the Hope and Lifetime Learning Tax.  more >>

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The Working Poor Families Project: Strengthening State Policies - State-by-State Accomplishments

This document updates the non-profit partners of The Working Poor Families Project (WPFP), who assess the conditions of low-income working families and the efforts of state governments to support these families through public policy. more >>

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The Working Poor Families Project: Strengthening State Policies for Working Families

This progress report details the positive changes accomplished in 20 partner states in efforts to help make substantial improvements in policies and practices around education and training, economic development and support services to assist low-income working families. more >>

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Race Matters: Unequal Opportunities for INCOME SECURITY

This fact sheet, part of a series of documents in the "Race Matters Toolkit", offers a quick source for analysis and strategies related to issues of inequity surrounding income security. more >>

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Race Matters: Unequal Opportunities for FAMILY AND COMMUNITY ECONOMIC SUCCESS

This fact sheet, part of a series of documents in the "Race Matters Toolkit", offers a quick source for analysis and strategies related to issues of inequity surrounding family economic success. more >>

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The Working Poor Families Project: Using Data from the American Community Survey to Strengthen State Policies, Winter 2006

Information serves as the driver of effective public policymaking. The ever rapid need to transfer information from federal to state and local governments, in addition to changing demographics and a society accustomed to instant access to information, has created a demand for current and reliable data to inform and support policymaking. This paper reviews how the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey is helping to provide timely data at the state and local level. more >>

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The Center for Working Families: Helping Families Achieve Economic Success

This brief provides an overview of the Center for Working Families’ framework and goals. The Center for Working Families® (CWF) is an approach to help low-income families reach financial stability and move up the economic ladder. Pioneered by the Casey Foundation and now supported by other major funders, the CWF offers an innovative framework for how families can increase their earnings and income (“Earn It”), reduce their financial transaction costs (“Keep It”), and build wealth for themselves and their communities (“Grow It”). more >>

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The Center for Working Families: A How To Guide

This guide explains the Center for Working Families’ framework and how this model can be applied to low-income families across the United States. The framework is a neighborhood service delivery model to help low-income families increase their earnings and income, reduce their financial transaction costs, and create new wealth for themselves. more >>

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The Working Poor Families Project: Promoting Student Success in Community Colleges by Increasing Support Services, Fall 2006

Many studies have shown that America’s postsecondary institutions, particularly community colleges, have room to improve student outcomes, retention, and completion rates. This news brief demonstrates how some states are working toward improving outcomes by increasing support services to students. more >>

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North Carolina's Unfinished Transformation: Connecting Working Families to the State's New Found Prosperity

This report examines the challenges faced by North Carolina's low-income working families, those playing a vital role in creating, sustaining and expanding the state's prosperity. It addresses how state programs and policies are insufficient to help many low-income working families acquire the skills and education needed to thrive in the modern economy. more >>

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Race Matters: Unequal Opportunities for RURAL FAMILY ECONOMIC SUCCESS

This fact sheet, part of a series of documents in the "Race Matters Toolkit", offers a quick source for analysis and strategies related to issues of inequity surrounding rural economic success. more >>

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Southern Bancorp and Southern Good Faith Fund: Tailoring Financial Services to Help Families Get Ahead

This document details findings that show that to move ahead financially low-income families need additional supports such as banking services to accumulate assets. This document also recounts the rigor in drawing low-income families into ongoing banking relationships.  more >>

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Over Half of Low-Income Children Live With a Parent Who Works Regularly

This Data Snapshot provides information on low-income working families, background on the barriers parents face to provide for their families, state-by-state rankings, and resources for helping working families suceed. more >>

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Census 2000: The Risk of Negative Child Outcomes in Low-Income Families

This report presents information for a broad range of income brackets in order to compare the relative risks for children living in different types of families. more >>

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Increasing the Availability of Affordable Homes: A Handbook of High-Impact State and Local Solutions

This publication identifies six broad strategies for increasing the availability of affordable homes and details 22 high-impact policies within those strategic categories. Also included are examples of the successful implementation of each policy solution, including photos that demonstrate that affordable homes can be well-built, well-maintained assets to a community. more >>

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Strengthening Rural Families: Avoiding the Money Trap [Video]

The Casey Foundation's 25-minute video highlights financial problems that often ensnare rural working families, including payday loans, high interest car loans, high debt, poor credit, and more. The documentary is designed to raise awareness among policymakers, service providers and advocates, as well as to be a resource for financial education. This video is not available for order or download. It is only accessible by streaming online. more >>

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West Central Initiative CD-ROM

West Central Initiative is a charitable foundation that brings together people and resources to improve the economic success of families in west central Minnesota. All of its programs are focused on achieving long-term improvements in the region’s social and economic viability. This CD-ROM, part of the Casey Foundation's work to strengthen rural famlies, offers highlights of a 2004 meeting when a small group of practitioners, funders, and policy makers visited to learn more about its work. more >>

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The Path to a High Road Economy: Investing in People, Creating Opportunity

This report focuses on strategically strengthening the policies that support low-income and poor working families in New Mexico to build an economy founded on innovation, quality and skills rather than on low wages and limited benefits. more >>

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SOWING PROSPERITY: Low-Income Working Families and Connecticut's Economic Future

This document presents information about low-income workers, highlights the successful policies that are already in place to help them, and describes how Connecticut can complete the work that needs to be done to improve present conditions. more >>

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Building Family and Economic Success: Financial Services

This fact sheet looks at the efforts to provide an array of strategies and partnerships aimed at increasing opportunities for asset development in low-income families. more >>

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Building Family and Economic Success: Financial Planning and Education

This fact sheet looks at the importance of financial education, which helps low-income families to avoid high-cost borrowing, maximize savings, and build strong credit records. more >>

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Housing as a Productive Family Asset

This study investigates how particular types of low and moderate-income families seek to use their homes and land as productive, economic assets. Doing so helps them to generate income and lower their costs of living. more >>

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Building Family and Economic Success: Individual Development Accounts and Other Savings Tools

This fact sheet looks at ways low-income families can build assets and save for the future using Individual Development Accounts. more >>

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Building Family and Economic Success: Workforce Development

This fact sheet looks at ways to connect low-skilled adults to well-paying jobs, through training and post-employment supports. more >>

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Building Family and Economic Success: Work Supports

This fact sheet looks at efforts to increase use of work supports, including medical coverage, food stamps, tax credits, and child subsidies, to help low-income families achieve financial stability. more >>

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Building Family and Economic Success: Homeownership and Predatory Lending

This fact sheet looks at the efforts to make home ownership accessible and affordable, and protect low-income families from costly and exploitative predatory mortgage lending schemes. more >>

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Building Family and Economic Success: The High Cost of Being Poor

This fact sheet looks at the efforts to raise awareness that families who earn the least in our country often pay the most for basic goods and services. more >>

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Children First for Oregon: Strategies for Fighting Child Poverty in Oregon

This policy brief provides statistics on the number of children in poverty in Oregon. It specifically highlights action items that Oregon state can do to improve the quality of life for its children. more >>

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Building Family and Economic Success: The Earned Income Tax Credit

This fact sheet looks at the benefits of Earned Income Tax Credit campaigns, which boost the impact of these credits by promoting awareness to low-income families. more >>

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Building Family and Economic Success: Centers for Working Families

This fact sheet looks at the work of Centers for Working Families. The innovative strategy brings various programs and services for families together in a single location. more >>

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Building Native Communities: A Tribal Leader's Guide to Launching an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Campaign

The purpose of this handbook is to provide guidance to Native American tribal leaders and community organizers who want to improve awareness about the Earned Income Tax Credit and expand affordable access to tax preparation services in Native communities. more >>

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Driver's License Suspension Policies

While access to an automobile can be difficult for the working poor because of cost or credit issues, license suspension is another barrier to reliable transportation. For workers without a license, jobs may be inaccessible because the license is a prerequisite, or because a car is the only means to access a job far from home. more >>

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Centers for Working Families EarnBenefits Evaluation-Learning Paper

This learning paper focuses on the core service areas of Casey's Center for Working Families initiative. The authors of this paper discuss Seedco’s EarnFair Alliance implementation of EarnBenefits, a natural experiment used to test the hypothesis that integrating services is a better way to help low-income families achieve economic self-sufficiency. more >>

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A House of Cards: Refinancing the American Dream. Borrowing to Make Ends Meet

This is the third in a series of Borrowing to Make Ends Meet briefing papers. Since the refinancing boom began in 2001, American homeowners have cashed out over $330 billion in home equity to cover rising living expenses and credit card debt, putting at risk their most important asset - their home. more >>

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A Work in Progress: Case Studies in Changing Local Workforce Development Systems - The Jobs Initiative Final Report Series, Volume 1

Using a case study format, this report examines the experience of several Jobs Initiative sites as they sought to foster change in the broader workforce development system in their regions more >>

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A Jobs Initiative Research Brief: Approaches to Measuring and Tracking Career Advancement

This brief focuses on the data side of career advancements by identifying issues, challenges, and methods for setting advancement targets, and collecting and reporting data associated with those targets. more >>

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FES Local Action Handbook for Making Connections Teams

This handbook is designed to meet the needs of Making Connections’ site teams focused on improving results for families by strengthening the structures that lead to family economic success. It features ideas and examples of policy and regulatory actions that can be promoted by residents.  more >>

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Assessing the New Federalism: Eight Years Later

This report synthesizes selected findings from more than 450 Assessing the New Federalism publications plus dozens of journal articles, book chapters, and research presentations. These findings illustrate dramatic changes in the experience of low-income families, those who have been on welfare and those who haven't, from the mid-1990s to the present. more >>

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Low-Cost Payday Loans: Opportunities and Obstacles

This report examines how banks and credit unions can better serve their low- and middle-income customers by providing low-cost alternatives to payday loans. The report cites several examples of profitable models and recommends that banks and credit unions offering payday loan alternatives combine those products with mandatory savings features. more >>

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A Work in Progress: Case Studies in Changing Local Workforce Development Systems - The Jobs Initiative Final Report Series--Volume 1

Volume 1 of the Jobs Initiative Final Reports examines the experience of trying to promote workforce development system improvement in four of the Jobs Initiative sites: Seattle, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Philadelphia. more >>

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Carsey Institute Policy Brief #1 Fall 2005: Rural America Depends on Food Stamp Program to Make Ends Meet

This policy brief, funded by the Casey Foundation, provides a demographic picture of food stamp recipients in rural America. It provides detailed information on income, race, age, and family size. Also included is a comparison of food stamp recipients in urban areas. more >>

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The Individual Taxpayer Identification Number

This publication on individual taxpayer identification numbers (ITINs) discusses the issues involving ITINs and provides a guide to the current ITIN application process. more >>

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AdvoCasey: Winter 2005, Volume 7, Number 1

This issue spells out the high prices low-income Americans pay for credit, home-ownership, banking, shopping, and medical debts. One article specifically explores the implications of payday lending—high-cost cash advances that have proliferated widely in recent years.  more >>

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Engaging Employers to Benefit Low-Income Job Seekers: Lessons Learned from the Jobs Initiative

Employers make choices that are key to the ability of low-income people to get and keep jobs and to advance in the workforce. Given the importance of the employer’s role regarding opportunities for low-wage, entry-level workers, there has been surprisingly little research into employers’ opinions and actions on this topic. This paper presents research on this topic using data collected from the Annie E. Casey’s Jobs Initiative. more >>

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Workforce Intermediaries: Powering Regional Economies in the New Century

This report assesses lessons learned from three key workforce intermediaries funded by Casey. Intermediaries help advance local workforce agendas, provide funding, and bring focus to a range of stakeholders. They also support both employers and workers. This report provides insights about the importance of the intermediary approach and the qualities of organizations that can best serve in this role. more >>

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The ITEP Guide to Fair State and Local Taxes

This guide offers citizens, activists and policymakers a detailed primer on state and local tax policy. It explains the differences between progressive, flat and regressive taxes, and covers the full range of taxes that states and localities can impose, including personal and corporate income taxes, property taxes, and sales and excise taxes. more >>

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EITC in Indian Country: Beyond the Tipping Point for Family Economic Success

This is the story of what tipped toward progress in the nationwide movement to make the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) campaign an option for native families in America, what has happened since, and how partners can better heed the call to action. more >>

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Working Hard, Falling Short: Investing in California's Working Families

This report examines the prospects of California’s low-income working families in the context of a changing economic and demographic environment. It recommends changes in state policy that help low-income working families achieve higher standards of living and strengthen California’s economy. more >>

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Average Isn't Enough: Advancing Working Families to Create an Outstanding Ohio Economy

This report describes Ohio’s low-income working families, what they need to become financially stable, and opportunities to strengthen or alter state programs and policies to better support these families. It also demonstrates how the state’s economy and businesses benefit when hardworking families are able to have an income adequate to meet their basic needs. more >>

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Between Hope and Hard Times: New York’s Working Families In Economic Distress

This report addresses New York's high cost of living, lack of affordable housing, and large immigrant population as key factors that add to the challenge of how to assist low-income families. Research includes a list of more than 120 nationally-derived "indicators" measuring data and policy questions. more >>

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Making It Work: Policies to Promote Self-Sufficiency for Kentucky's Working Families

This report addresses the situation for low-wage workers in Kentucky and state efforts to help working families become and remain economically self-sufficient. Its goal is to provide an agenda for positive action addressing critical areas of need and assuring a better future for families, businesses and the state as a whole. more >>

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Working Hard, Falling Short: Wisconsin's Working Families and the Pursuit of Economic Security

This policy brief highlights the Wisconsin findings contained in Working Hard, Falling Short: AMERICA's Working Families and the Pursuit of Economic Security. It provides information on how low-income working families in the state are doing relative to their neighbors and the rest of the nation, and evaluates the effectiveness of some of the work supports already in place to help these families make ends meet. more >>

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Workforce Development for Working Families: A Solution in Search of Civic Commitment

This article by the Casey Foundation's Family Economic Success Initiative, describes how communities can create successful workforce initiatives based on lessons and findings from the Foundation's Jobs Initiative. more >>

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Investing in Massachusetts Working Families: A Framework for Economic Prosperity

This report describes the state of low-wage working families in Massachusetts, the reasons why they remain poor, and the policies and programs that are in place to help working families advance to self-sufficiency. The focus is on the scale and effectiveness of essential public services meeting the needs of these families. more >>

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Making the Pieces Fit: A Plan for Ensuring a Prosperous Illinois

This document is based on a study of over 100 indicators from the Working Poor Families project's assessment tool evaluating states’ efforts in addressing the needs of working families and the economy. The report assesses how Illinois’ workforce and economic development policies serve the needs of its families and the state as a whole. more >>

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Earn It, Keep It, Save It -- Making a Difference: The National Tax Assistance for Working Families Campaign

The National Tax Assistance for Working Families Campaign puts the power of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to work for low-income families across the nation. This brochure reflects the impact of the National Tax Assistance for Working Families Campaign across 30 diverse communities. more >>

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Implementing Financial Work Incentives in Public Housing: Lessons from the Jobs-Plus Demonstration

The Jobs Plus Community Revitalization Initiative for Public Housing Families incorporates the first large scale test of new rent rules that help to make low-wage work pay. Drawing on the experiences of housing authorities in six cities, this report presents lessons on the implementation and use of these innovative work incentives as part of a comprehensive package of employment-related assistance. more >>

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Beyond the Bottom Line: Expanding Economic Opportunities for Washington's Working Families

This document explores the labor market along withthe economic and policy context in which Washington workers must operate. It reveals opportunities for low-wage families to achieve economic success. Analysis is based on population and program data, with an emphasis on Washington’s diversity in geography, ethnicity and economy. more >>

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National Tax Assistance for Working Families Campaign

This report analyzes data collected from those participating in the National Tax Assistance for Working Families Campaign (NTA) in the 2004 tax filing season. It provides both a summary overview of the 2004 NTA activity and detailed analysis of particular data elements. more >>

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Jobs Initiative Research Conference: Recent Research and Results, Conference Highlights

This document provides highlights from the February 27-28, 2003 “Jobs Initiative Research Conference – Recent Research and Results.” It contains key findings from panel sessions on achieving economic self-sufficiency; the role of race, ethnicity, and cultural competence; employers’ roles in workforce development; local workforce politics; and approaches to continuing research and policy development. more >>

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Working Hard, Falling Short: America’s Working Families and the Pursuit of Economic Security

The Working Poor Families Project has spent three years working in 15 states to examine both the conditions of low-income working families and public policies that can help improve their lives. This report looks at low-income working families across the nation and key facets of an economic and public system that affect their ability to achieve economic security. more >>

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Changing Workforce, Changing Economy: State Unemployment Insurance Reforms for the 21st Century

According to this report, the unemployment insurance program has failed to keep pace with the new realities of our diverse and changing workforce. Those who care about working families need to promote a new agenda that includes access to affordable health care, child care and decent wages for those who are struggling against all odds to make ends meet. more >>

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Good Jobs and Careers: What Communities Need to do to Train and Move Low-Income, Low-Skilled People into Good Jobs and Careers

This brochure wheel illustrates the 10 steps communities need to consider in creating a successful workforce initiative. more >>

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Commuting Cost Estimator

Among the costs low-income rural families juggle as they try to make ends meet are housing and transportation. This tool calculates the estimated costs of commuting based on commuting distance and car depreciation, maintenance and insurance costs. It illuminates the often hidden costs when long commutes to good jobs are exchanged for affordable housing. more >>

Opportunity Lost: When Hard Work Isn't Enough for Colorado's Families

This report is about families who, despite working hard (sometimes at multiple jobs), do not earn enough without accepting public support or private charity. It discusses those working families who often do not have enough money each month to cover food, rent, utilities, health insurance or other necessities. more >>

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Connecting Low-Income Families to Good Jobs: A Policy Road Map for Maryland

This report is designed to inform policymakers about the conditions of employment and financial stability facing low-income workers in Maryland, and to recommend changes in state policy that can improve those conditions. more >>

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No Time to Be Sick: Why Everyone Suffers When Workers Don't have Paid Sick Leave

Expansion of paid sick leave and integration of family caregiving activities into authorized uses of paid sick leave are crucial work and health supports for workers, their families, employers, and our communities at large. This document examines the real costs and benefits of paid sick leave for these workers. more >>

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Private Employers and Public Benefits

This report examines the Workforce Innovations Networks (WINS), which investigated the value of providing public benefits to low-income workers through their employers, and conducted research on employers' experiences with public benefit programs, including those aimed directly at increasing the hiring and retention of workers from low-income families. more >>

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Accessing Affordable and Appropriate Credit: A Background Paper Prepared for the Annie E. Casey Foundation

This report examines the key issues and trends for low-income consumers accessing credit, including 1) the U.S. credit system, 2) consumer motivations and methods for accessing credit, and 3) the link between individual and community wealth. more >>

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Continuing the Investment in a Competitive Workforce and a Brighter Economic Future for Arkansas

This report’s assessment of state policy reveals that Arkansas has many policies in place that support or help facilitate the achievement of economic self-sufficiency among working poor families. It also reveals that many more policies to improve state support to working poor families could be adopted. more >>

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Earned Income Tax Credits Help

Too often children suffer because of financial issues facing low-income families. This guide helps low-income families learn more about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a federal tax relief credit that has helped lift over 5 million families out of poverty.  more >>

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Working for a Living in Michigan: State Workforce Policies and Low-Income Workers

This report details the Casey Foundation's Workforce Measures Project, and presents Michigan data about working families in poverty, as well as the state's workforce development and economic security policies and outcomes. more >>

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Strengthening Florida's Workforce - Stengthening the Economy

This study uses a framework intended as a tool for assessing state efforts to assist working poor families. It was developed as a component of the New Cornerstone Chapter on Diversity-Economic Opportunities for Floridians. more >>

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Honoring Work in Wisconsin: State Policies To Promote Self-Sufficiency for Working Families

This report uses five state-level reports to bring working poor families into the spotlight of state and national policymakers. Starting with basic outcome data on families in economic distress, the Wisconsin report goes on to identify benchmark data in key areas, and policy levers that can help improve outcomes for working families in the state. more >>

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Building Strong Financial Futures for Families and Communities: A Framework for Family Economic Success

This framework document discusses what Casey means by Family Economic Success and describes a range of strategies for achieving and sustaining economic well-being. It provides background information on the need for the FES approach, and illustrates what family economic success can look like. It also describes desirable outcomes, and benchmarks that mark progress on the way to achieving those outcomes. more >>

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Through the Family's Eyes: How Families Experience Polk County's Helping Systems

This document portrays ten diverse, inner-city Des Moinesfamilies’ experiences seeking help from public systems in PolkCounty. This document reports common challenges faced by the families when trying to receive services and presents the families’ attitudes towards public bureaucracies.    more >>

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Keeping America in Business: Advancing Workers, Business, and Economic Growth

This document details findings and recommendations from a 2003 meeting that examined policies, approaches and actions that need to be taken to assure that workers have access to economic opportunity and to assure that employers have access to the skilled workforce required for them to be globally competitive. Co-sponsored by the Casey Foundation, the meeting included 75 people representing business, labor, academia, government, workforce intermediaries, academia, nonprofit organizations, and the media. more >>

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Shifting into Gear: A Comprehensive Guide to Creating an Ownership Program

This publication offers detailed steps and strategies for organizations interested in launching car ownership programs to help low-income residents overcome the obstacles to getting and keeping vehicles. It outlines various public and private models, and gives tips to help existing programs refine their approach. more >>

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Borrowing to Make Ends Meet: The Growth of Credit Card Debt in the 90's

Using new data, this report explores how families are increasingly using credit cards to meet their basic needs. It also examines the factors driving this record-setting debt and the impact of deregulation on the cost, availability and marketing of credit cards. more >>

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Increasing the Availability of Affordable Homes: An Analysis of High-Impact State and Local Solutions

The intent of this analysis is to identify promising strategies that states and localities can adopt to expand the availability of homes affordable to teachers, firefighters, nurses and other families who live or work in their communities. more >>

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Workforce Development Policy and the AECF Jobs Initiative

This publication is second in a series of issue briefs on the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Jobs Initiative and its implications for policy makers. more >>

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Community Investments for Family Economic Success

This guide offers strategies that can work to level the economic playing field for low-income families by helping communities plan, secure, and direct new investment. These ideas, approaches, and resources can help Making Connections site teams, neighborhood residents, and community leaders work with businesses and other partners to realize the often untapped market strength of low-income neighborhoods. This document is part of the TARC Resource Guide series. more >>

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The Incredible Shrinking Budget for Working Families and Children

This brief argues that the budget for working families and children is largely discretionary and too often treated as a leftover in the annual appropriations process. It gives data on the recent decline in domestic policy, and the recent spending and tax-cutting spree. more >>

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Changing Labor Markets: A Systems Approach to Reform

This report describes a systems reform response to the challenges of U.S. labor markets. It offers a dual-customer approach: the objective is to change the labor market system so that low-income people find and hold good-paying jobs and employers efficiently find qualified workers to fill vacant jobs. more >>

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Making Work Pay: How to Design and Implement Financial Work Supports to Improve Family and Child Well-Being and Reduce Poverty

This guide draws upon the lessons MDRC has learned from rigorous evaluations it has conducted to help states improve existing work-support programs, alter welfare programs to achieve new goals, and create an entirely new framework for supporting work. For states interested in improving family and child wellbeing and reducing poverty, this guide can serve as a useful road map. more >>

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Breaking Through: Overcoming Barriers to Family-Sustaining Employment

This report examines barriers, interventions, and employment outcomes across Jobs Initiative sites based on an extensive participant database. Analysis focuses on the relationship between the many intervention strategies used by the Jobs Initiative sites and the outcomes achieved by participants. more >>

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Education Policy and The Jobs Initiative: Part Three

This paper is the third in a series of Jobs Initiative issue briefs. It looks at findings from the Jobs Initiative and the implications for public policy, including reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. more >>

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Texas at Work: Today and Tomorrow-The Case for Sound Workforce Investment Policies

This report examines the potential of Texas’ workforce. Of particular interest are the living conditions and public policies affecting hard working, but low-income, workers. It also considers state economic and workforce policies that have a disproportionate impact—positive or negative—on these workers. more >>

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AdvoCasey Preprint Article: Repealing the Hidden Tax

This article focuses on strategies and programs that help low-income working families avoid expensive tax preparers, maximize their refunds, and begin saving for the future  more >>

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I Know Where I'm Going (But Will My Cash Keep Up?): Part Two

This workbook is designed to stimulate conversations with foster children, ages 12 to 15, about investing money, being a savvy shopper, and using a credit card. It deals with personal responsibility, planning a career, sharing with others--both financially and in other ways, and setting long-term aspirations. more >>

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Helping Working Families: Action for Municipal Leaders

This kit, based on research and best practices from across the nation, was designed for municipal leaders to address each of the Institute for Youth, Education, and Families’ five core program areas: education, youth development, early childhood development, the safety of children and youth, and family economic security. more >>

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I Know Where I'm Going (But Will My Cash Keep Up?): Part One

Part one of this two-part guide is a workbook designed to stimulate conversations with foster children, ages 12 to 15, about money values, attitudes toward money, setting goals, planning spending, and using a bank. There is a focus on using mathematics to solve practical word problems related to budgeting. Part I of the Foster Youth Money Guide Series. more >>

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Caregiver's Handbook for Money Pals: "Being Cool with Cash" and "I Know Where I'm Going (But Will My Cash Keep Up?)

This guidebook supplements the two-part guides, "Money Pals" and "I Know Where I'm Going," spelling out a curriculum schedule, activities, and prompts for conversations with foster children, ages 8 to 15, about financial skills. more >>

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Money Pals: Being Cool with Cash, Part One

This workbook is designed to teach foster children, ages 8 to 11, practical skills about using money, like counting money, distinguishing between a need and a want, and earning extra money. It also teaches saving skills, like saving for later or saving for something special, using a bank, and understanding credit cards. more >>

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Using An Investment Approach to Grantmaking: Executive Summary

This report looks at the Foundation's Jobs Inititiative and its lessons for funders of workforce development initiatives. more >>

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Moving Up Is a Steep Climb

This ethnographic study follows the lives and fortunes of 10 families who participated in the Casey Foundation’s Jobs Initiative programs in Milwaukee and Seattle. more >>

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Creating Change: Pushing Workforce Systems to Help Participants Achieve Economic Stability and Mobility

This report looks at some of the initial systems reform efforts by Jobs Initiative sites and what strategies seem to be working. It uses a case study approach to identify the most significant reform changes to date. For each case, the report describes the challenge facing the site, its strategy, and the impact of its work. more >>

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Fact Sheet on Latino Youth: Income and Poverty

Poor children are at a greater risk than non-poor children for several negative outcomes. These children are more likely to perform poorly in school, become teen parents, and to become unemployed. This fact sheet highlights additional challenges to Latino children such as language and cultural barriers, and the stresses of aculturation for immigrant families. more >>

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AdvoCasey: Summer 2002, Volume 4, Number 2

This issue examines the future of welfare reform. Feature stories detail one program that helps newly employed welfare recipients move from dead end jobs to promising careers and another that offers long-term welfare recipients "swimming lessons" before making them sink or swim on their own.  more >>

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AdvoCasey: Spring 2002, Volume 4, Number 1

This issue focuses on tax credits for America's fragile families. It highlights the growing value of earned income and child tax credits for low-income working families. Other stories profile the remarkable rise of Houston public schools; two Miami-based adolescent substance abuse treatment programs; and Chicago's Child-Parent Centers. more >>

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Providing the Missing Link: A Model for a Neighborhood-Focused Employment Program

This report provides a model for implementing a neighborhood-focused workforce development strategy. With dual goals of increasing residents' employment and income, as well as increasing the quantity and quality of career opportunities, the strategy outlined in this document helps bridge the gap between low-income neighborhoods and regional workforce development programs. more >>

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Casey Connects Newsletter, 11, Summer 2002

This issue focuses on making work count for low-income families, racial disparities in juvenile detention, and the role of cultural competency in connecting workers to jobs.  more >>

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Casey Connects Newsletter, Issue 9, Winter 2002

This issue focuses on the Foundation’s juvenile justice, family economic success, and immigration work.  more >>

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How Can We Encourage Job Retention and Advancement for Welfare Recipients?

Part of the New Federalism program by Annie E. Casey and the Urban Institute, this brief presents evidence on job performance and retention among welfare recipients in an effort to assess changing social policies. more >>

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Workforce Development Management Information Systems

This report details important lessons learned using management information systems in workforce development programs based on experiences of the Jobs Initiative and non-Jobs Initiative workforce development organizations. more >>

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Systems Reform in the Jobs Initiative: Lessons from Using the Framework for Labor Market Systems Reform

In the sixth of a series of policy briefs related to retention and advancement for low-income residents, Pete Plastrik and Judy Taylor look at the systems-change framework being used by the Jobs Initiative and how it is working for the Jobs Initiative sites. more >>

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Taking the Initiative on Jobs and Race

This is a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation on the complex issue of race and regional labor markets, particularly for low-skilled workers. It includes lessons learned around issues of cultural competence and identifies helpful tools to improve the practice of workforce development for jobs seekers, workers, and employers alike. more >>

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Exposing Urban Legends: The Real Purchasing Power of Central City Neighborhoods

This study explains how researchers in Milwaukee created an alternative to private marketing data, using a variety of local and state data sources, and offers a template for using similar data to create urban economic profiles elsewhere. more >>

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Employing Welfare Recipients with Significant Barriers to Work: Lessons from the Disability Field

The purpose of this report is to examine the disability community's efforts to help individuals with significant disabilities access and maintain employment . It also identifies how welfare agencies can build on lessons learned from the disability community. more >>

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Closing the Gap: How Sectoral Workforce Development Programs Benefit the Working Poor

This publication examines data from a longitudinal survey of participants in six sectoral employment training programs, and documents what participants report one year after completing training, about their earnings, employment situation, and experiences with the programs. more >>

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Extending Ladders: Findings from the Annie E. Casey's Jobs Initiative

This document offers an insightful look at some of the employment outcomes and lessons of The Casey Foundation's Jobs Initiative, which sought to improve the way urban labor markets work for low-income, inner-city residents. more >>

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How are Families that Left Welfare Doing? A Comparison of Early and Recent Welfare Leavers

This brief examines whether a more recent group of leavers—those who left welfare between 1997 and 1999—appears more disadvantaged or less job-ready than an early group of leavers—those who left between 1995 and 1997—by comparing barriers to work and economic outcomes between the two groups. more >>

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A Local Ladder for the Working Poor

This is a study showing how the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) benefits low-income families and local economies.  It examines benefits of the EITC in largest 100 U.S. metropolitan areas. more >>

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On the Road: Car Ownership as an Asset-Building Strategy for Reducing Transportation-Related Barriers to Work

This is a report on car ownership as a strategy for helping people move into the labor market and helping low-wage workers gain access to better paying opportunities. It gives profiles and experiences of seven car-ownership programs, along with a bibliography of additional publications on transportation and poverty. more >>

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Welfare to Work: Strategies for Health Care Work Force Development

This document examines the successful practices and potential barriers that health care organizations may face when employing individuals transitioning from welfare. Also included is a discussion of how lessons learned might be broadened to improve overall health care workforce development.  more >>

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Building New Partnerships for Employment: Collaboration among Agencies and Public Housing Residents in the Jobs-Plus Demonstration

This report examines the Jobs-Plus Community Revitalization Initiative for Public Housing Families (or Jobs-Plus). It shows how the seven cities in this national demonstration collaborated to design, fund, and operate a place-based employment initiative for residents of selected public housing developments and includes lessons with implications for a wide range of community-building and other initiatives. more >>

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Employment Placement and Retention in the Annie E. Casey Foundation Jobs Initiative

The 2001 Annual Statistical Report of the Annie E. Casey's Jobs Initiative provides analysis of site-collected program data with a focus on issues pertaining to Jobs Initiative participants’ labor force retention patterns. This report focuses on employment barriers, training and placement services provided, and employee retention issues. more >>

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Relative Strength: A Report on the Family's Place in Workforce Development Initiatives

This paper is a report on family centered employment strategies. It begins with a look at the economics of families in poverty and a brief outline of the many ways in which employment and training programs have begun to work with families. The report then examines the work of four employment programs now offering  services to families. more >>

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Results from the Jobs Initiative: Evaluation of the Capacity Building Phase

This is an evaluation of the initiative's capacity-building phase. The evaluation looks at how well Jobs Initiative sites have addressed the needs of very hard-to-serve populations and engaged employers. It identifies the characteristics of those served, placement and retention rates, gains in wages and benefits, and some of the critical factors in achieving these accomplishments. more >>

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Meeting the Housing Needs of Families: A Resource Guide

This guide addresses the serious housing problems faced by millions of low-income families across the country and within the 22 Making Connections sites. Part of the TARC Resource Guide series. more >>

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The Unavailability of Information on Insurance Unavailability

This research brief examines which states require geographic disclosure of property insurance policies, the type of information that is available, and how that information can be utilized to examine issues of insurance unavailability, redlining, and discrimination. more >>

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Connecting Families to Jobs

This resource guide provides key ideas, effective approaches and technical assistance for Making Connections cities and site teams. The guide containing information on strategies for connecting low-income residents to jobs. Part of the TARC Resource Guide series. more >>

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Evaluation of the Annie E. Casey Foundation Jobs Initiative-First Annual Report: Executive Summary

This is the executive summary of the report that examines the accomplishments and challenges of the planning phase across the six sites of the Casey Foundation's Jobs Initiative, designed to improve access of disadvantaged young adults to family supporting employment. more >>

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Tools for Survival: An Analysis of Financial Literacy Programs for Lower-Income Families

This analysis concludes that current financial programs reach a small fraction of lower income people. While the variety of training programs offered could be improved in a number of ways, the greater challenge is to figure out how to reach significantly more people with more substantive training. The recommendations in this document address this challenge. more >>

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Building Family Assets: A Guide to Key Ideas, Effective Approaches, and Technical Assistance Resources for Making Connections Cities and Site Teams

This resource guide describes ways of enabling low-income, working families to build up assets (such as home and business ownership), through savings and through supplements. It includes asset-building for those receiving very low wages often paid for entry-level jobs. more >>

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Casey Connects Newsletter, Issue 3, Summer 2000

This issue focuses on the 2000 KIDS COUNT data book, the work of Casey Family Services, and challenges faced by immigrant families.  more >>

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Encouraging Work, Reducing Poverty: The Impact of Work Incentive Programs

This report offers a quick summary of the historical conditions and recent developments that have made incentives a central part of welfare policy. It also lists key policy questions driving the analysis, describes specific programs and research designs in detail, compares and contrasts the programs' effects, and concludes with lessons and implications for policymakers and program designers. more >>

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The Human Services Workforce Initiative: The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Commitment

This document lays out the multi-year effort to address the critical condition of the workforce that serves America's most disadvantaged children and families. It highlights the urgent need to recruit and retain workers who have the appropriate training and support to deliver crucial and pivotal help in shaping the lives of vulnerable children, youth and families. more >>

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The Jobs Initiative and Welfare Policy

This report looks at results and lessons from the Jobs Initiative and the implications for federal welfare policy. The brief is the first in a series on the initiative and its implications for federal policymakers. more >>

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Stronger Links: New Ways to Connect Low-Skilled Workers to Better Jobs

This document highlights innovative programs that have emerged from a carefully planned, strategically funded, and thoughtfully implemented process to reform the labor market for low-income young adults in six cities. The stories and lessons presented are from the Jobs Initiative. more >>

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Promoting Participation: How to Increase Involvement in Welfare-to-Work Activities

This guide shares lessons from the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation's welfare evaluations and field experience about welfare to work participation patterns, where participation is likely to fall off, and how to increase it.  Practical advice to policy makers and welfare-to-work program administrators is also offered. more >>

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New Hope for Low-Income Workers: Improving Economic and Child Outcomes in Milwaukee

This article was published as part of the serial ADVOCASEY, Vol.1, No. 2. in 1999. It presents an evaluation of the New Hope project in Milwaukee and its impact on children. more >>

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Business Leaders and Communities Working Together for Change

This report presents an overview of what corporate leaders have been doing in, and with, high-poverty communities. It describes skills and leadership attributes they bring to the work; identifies their personal and organizational motivations; and portrays front-line perspectives on the communities and bureaucracies they are involved with. more >>

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Rethinking Income Support for the Working Poor: Perspectives on Unemployment, Insurance, Work, and Welfare

This book addresses new ways for states to provide former welfare recipients with economic security. The book includes ten chapters that discuss methods of promoting long-term employment by improving state welfare, unemployment insurance, and workforce policies. more >>

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Where Are They Now? What States' Studies of People Who Left Welfare Tell Us

This brief summarizes findings on employment rates, characteristics of employment, and other determinants of well-being from 11 studies on former welfare recipients' well-being. It focuses on employment because of its key role in determining their economic well-being, and also points out issues to consider in comparing study results. more >>

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Job Prospects for Welfare Recipients: Employers Speak Out

This report includes a nationwide survey to determine employers' attitudes and perspectives on hiring welfare recipients. It examines their expectations and requirements, the types of jobs available, and the pay and benefits offered. more >>

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Evaluation of the Annie E. Casey Foundation Jobs Initiative- First Annual Report

This report examines the accomplishments and challenges of the planning phase across the six sites of the Jobs Initiative, designed to improve access of disadvantaged young adults to family supporting employment opportunities. more >>

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Diversity Among State Welfare Programs: Implications for Reform

This brief depicts the diversity of state Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) programs prior to passage of the new Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) legislation, as a guide for assessing the potential implications of TANF for different states. more >>

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Joblessness and Unemployment: A Review of the Literature

This literature review gathers evidence on the relationship between African-American male economic potential in the formal sector of the economy, and transitions in African American family structure and marital stability. It provides insight into the crime, unemployment, family structure, and racial debates. more >>

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The High Cost of Being Poor: Tax Reform-Adequacy and Fairness, Issue Brief #3

This brief, part of a larger series, examines the impact that antiquated tax reform has on the lives of vulnerable Virginians. It discusses how a disproportionate burden of taxation is placed on low-income families, yet revenues from these taxes are not invested in essential public services.  more >>

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Building Family and Economic Success - Fact Sheet Series

This document includes a series of nine fact sheets focusing on strategies for families and economic success. Some of the topics covered include Centers for Working Families, The High Cost of Being Poor, Financial Planning and Education, and Worforce Development. more >>

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The High Cost of Being Poor: TANF, Issue Brief #4

This brief, part of a larger series, examines the impact that Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) has on the lives of vulnerable Virginians. It discusses how TANF benefits, in combination with other social services, should be available to all children in order to lift them out of poverty.   more >>

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The Annie E. Casey Foundation: An Overview of Family Economic Success

This three-pager outlines Casey approaches to Family Economic Success. It defines factors contributing to the economic isolation of low-income families and neighborhoods, and examples of the resulting vulnerabilities. It also covers parameters for measuring long-term success and initial work at Making Connections sites. more >>

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The Money Trap: La Trampa del Dinero [DVD Spanish]

The Spanish version includes the story of a woman determined to climb out of debt and support her five children. The programs are designed to help people gain a better understanding of their finances; help develop community awareness of various predatory lending issues; and to supplement financial education workshops. more >>

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The Money Trap: La Trampa del Dinero [VHS Spanish]

The Spanish version includes the story of a woman determined to climb out of debt and support her five children. The programs are designed to help people gain a better understanding of their finances; help develop community awareness of various predatory lending issues; and to supplement financial education workshops. more >>

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Contributions of the Earned Income Tax Credit to Community Development in Indian Country: 2005 Native Community VITA Site Project

This study examines the amount of money flowing to Native people and the potential uses of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). It also highlights the types of community infrastructure and programs that could help promote the usage of EITC within Native communities. more >>

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Waging a Living

The "Waging a Living" documentary puts a human face on the growing economic squeeze that is forcing millions of workers into the ranks of the poor. The toolkit is designed to stimulate discussion and motivate audiences to develop strategies that help low-income working families in their community climb up the economic ladder. The DVD includes a 26-minute documentary, policy brief, discussion guide, press release, and additional resources. more >>

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