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SSIR: The Hidden Financial Lives of America's Poor and Middle Class

by U.S. Financial Diaries

Recently, SSIRLive! featured The Hidden Financial Lives of America's Poor and Middle Class, a 2-part webinar and blog series, highlighting research based on the US Financial Diaries.  The research illustrates how current programs and policies for helping poor and middle class households achieve financial stability are based on an outdated understanding of the reality of their financial practices. 

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Every Dollar In, Every Dollar Out

by Financial Access Initiative

Think back on the past year in your financial life: the money you received from work, loans or gifts, the purchases large and small, the bank deposits and withdrawals. Now imagine keeping track of every one of those transactions - regardless of your income level, it would be a mind-boggling endeavor...

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What's In It For Me?

by Julie Siwicki of the Financial Access Initiative

In mid-June the Stanford Social Innovation Review blogged the results of a survey they conducted. The survey’s purpose: to understand the role of academic research in the work of practitioners in a broad range of social, environmental and economic issue areas. Many of the 1,800 respondents described academic research as difficult to access, expensive, too narrow, and not relevant...

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Video: Jonathan Morduch Highlights USFD Research at NYU Wagner

by U.S. Financial Diaries

More than 200 alumni, students, faculty, staff, donors, and friends of NYU Wagner celebrated the school's 75th anniversary on Thursday, June 12. The celebration began with faculty presenting their research highlights, or "WAGTalks."  FAI's Jonathan Morduch kicked off the series with an overview of the US Financial Diaries (USFD) project and its relevance in today's current economic debates...

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Under-savers Anonymous: A US Chapter?

by Julie Siwicki of the Financial Access Initiative

As a field researcher collecting data for the US Financial Diaries project in Cincinnati, I interviewed 30 low-income families about the details of their household finances over 16 months. One question was always in my mind: What’s the difference between their financial lives and mine? And how might this comparison help design financial products for people who are struggling to make ends meet?

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Bad Data

by Thea Garon of the Financial Access Initiative

At FAI, we’re big advocates for data. Why? Because you can’t make good policy without data. Data can be collected in many ways and come in many forms: transaction records, panel surveys, financial diaries, or field experiment results.  We get excited about the opportunity to collect or analyze data about the financial behavior of poor households...

 

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