Trina R. Williams Shanks

The Impacts of Household Wealth on Child Development

ABSTRACT This study examines the influence of wealth relative to income across several child development outcomes using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The wealth measures include net worth and specific asset holdings. The child outcome measures include two cognitive achievement scores and one behavior problem score. Analyses use OLS regression to test whether wealth has explanatory power distinct from income. Results show that wealth is a significant predictor for the applied problem math score and reported behavior problems. Implications and a brief introduction to asset-building programs that focus on children are discussed.

New Approaches to Old Problems: Market‐Based Strategies for Poverty Alleviation

The landscape of social welfare policy and practice is marked by new approaches that use business and market mechanisms to combat poverty. This article reviews four such antipoverty strategies: microenterprise, individual development accounts, social enterprise, and bottom‐of‐the‐pyramid (or base‐of‐the‐pyramid) schemes. The study provides a synthesis of the empirical research on the effectiveness of these approaches to date. It examines the effect of each of the four antipoverty strategies on barriers to market inclusivity and, when possible, considers the role of the institutional environment in shaping the strategies.

Family Assets and Child Outcomes: Evidence and Directions.

For poor families, the possession of assets—savings accounts, homes, and the like—has the potential not only to relieve some of the stress of living in poverty but also to make a better future seem like a real possibility. If children in families that own certain assets fare better than children in families without them, then helping poor families build those assets would be an effective strategy for two-generation programs. Indeed, write Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Trina Williams Shanks, and Sondra Beverly, plenty of evidence shows that assets are connected to positive outcomes for poor children. For example, young people who have any college savings at all, even a very small amount, are more likely to go to college; children in households with assets score higher on standardized achievement tests; and children of homeowners experience fewer behavioral problems. But this evidence comes from longitudinal data sets and is therefore correlational. Looking for causal relationships, the authors examine the results of experimental programs that opened various types of savings accounts for poor people and matched their contributions. Several of these trials included a control group that did not receive a savings account, making it possible to attribute any positive outcomes directly to the savings accounts rather than to their owners’ personal characteristics. These programs dispelled the myth that poor people can’t save; participants were generally able to accumulate savings. It’s too early to tell, however, whether assets and asset-building programs have long-term effects on children’s wellbeing, though one experiment found positive impacts on disadvantaged children’s social-emotional development at age four. The most promising programs share several features: they are opened early in life; they are opened automatically, with no action required from the recipients; and they come with an initial deposit.

Family-Centered, Community-Based Asset Building: A Strategic Use of Individual Development Accounts

This research examines individual development account (IDA) programs as part of a broader community development strategy for low-income/low-wealth communities, particularly communities of color. Through a review of multiple literatures and detailed case studies, we explore the potential of explicitly creating a community-based, family-centered development account program as a step toward a comprehensive community asset building approach in low-income urban neighborhoods. From the perspective of IDA practitioners, such an approach provides program participants with local support networks and access to additional services. From the perspective of grassroots community organizers, such an approach provides tangible benefits to low-income residents of their neighborhoods. The likelihood of success may depend on the availability of local resources to build areas of strength and reduce vulnerabilities, but there are examples where a family-centered, community-based asset building approach seems to thrive.

Suggestions to Improve Social Work Journal Editorial and Peer-Review Processes: The San Antonio Response to the Miami Statement

Interest in and concern about scholarly communications through social work journals seem to have increased recently. One indicator of this concern was the publication of the Miami statement. A Society for Social Work and Research Presidential Task Force was created to continue work on these issues. This article discusses the work of one subcommittee of that task force. This subcommittee developed a set of suggestions pertaining to the processes of submitting social work manuscripts to journals and to the system of editorial review and processing. The authors view these suggestions as expanding on the Miami statement.

Assets and African Americans: Attempting to Capitalize on Hopes for Children Through College Savings Accounts

Although some racial inequalities have lessened in the half-century since the passage of the first major civil rights legislation, the racial wealth gap remains and in recent years seems to be widening. Households with children are the least likely to be asset secure or have sufficient resources to enable investment in opportunities for mobility. Viewing inequality from this perspective indicates that what households are able to save and invest for the future might have a more lasting impact on the life chances of children than their current income and consumption. Summarizing data from the Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship, and Downpayment (SEED) Initiative, a quasi-experimental study that is part of a national demonstration of Child Development Accounts (CDAs) in the United States, this paper describes how African-American households engage with one important investment opportunity - college savings accounts for their pre-school children. Combining account monitoring, survey, interview and focus group data, we explore the reasons that many households chose not to open accounts or invest their own money. We offer suggestions for making asset development programs viable for low-income African-American families and their children.

Parental Self-Efficacy and Joining a Savings Program for Children’s Education

Objectives: Using baseline survey data, the study examined self-efficacy of 381 lower-income parents who had opportunities to build financial assets for their children by opening college savings accounts in a human service agency. Methods: Of the study sample, 62% of the parents decided to open accounts while 38% did not. Structural equation modeling for multiple group models was performed. Results: There were few demographic differences between the groups. The measurement model was invariant across parents who decided or did not decide to open accounts, fitting the data for both account openers and nonopeners, χ2(450, n = 381) = 804.60, p < .001, root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = .070(.063—.073), Non-Normed Fit Index [NNFI] = 0.93, Comparative Fit Index [CFI] = 0.93). Conclusions: Results lend some support to institutional perspective on saving. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Neighbourhood Poverty, Perceived Discrimination and Central Adiposity in the USA: Independent Associations in A Repeated Measures Analysis

This study examines the independent effects of neighbourhood context (i.e. neighbourhood poverty) and exposure to perceived discrimination in shaping risk of obesity over time. Weighted three-level hierarchical linear regression models for a continuous outcome were used to assess the independent effects of neighbourhood poverty and perceived discrimination on obesity over time in a sample of 157 non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic White and Hispanic adults in Detroit, USA, in 2002/2003 and 2007/2008. Independent associations were found between neighbourhood poverty and perceived discrimination with central adiposity over time. Residents of neighbourhoods with high concentrations of poverty were more likely to show increases in central adiposity compared with those in neighbourhoods with lower concentrations of poverty. In models adjusted for BMI, neighbourhood poverty at baseline was associated with a greater change in central adiposity among participants who lived in neighbourhoods in the second (B=3.79, p=0.025) and third (B=3.73, p=0.024) poverty quartiles, compared with those in the lowest poverty neighbourhoods. The results from models that included both neighbourhood poverty and perceived discrimination showed that both were associated with increased risk of increased central adiposity over time. Residents of neighbourhoods in the second (B=9.58, p<0.001), third (B=8.25, p=0.004) and fourth (B=7.66, p=0.030) quartiles of poverty were more likely to show greater increases in central adiposity over time, compared with those in the lowest poverty quartile, with mean discrimination at baseline independently and positively associated with increases in central adiposity over time (B=2.36, p=0.020). The results suggest that neighbourhood poverty and perceived discrimination are independently associated with a heightened risk of increase in central adiposity over time. Efforts to address persistent disparities in central adiposity in the USA should include strategies to reduce high concentrations of neighbourhood poverty as well as discrimination.

The Rise of Asset Building and Its Impact on Social Policy

1. The Rise of Asset Building and its Impact on Social Policy Reid Cramer and Trina R. Williams Shanks 2. Transformation of Anti-Poverty Policies and Programs Trina R. Williams Shanks 3. The Finances of Typical Households after the Great Recession Clinton Key 4. Financial Fracking in the Land of the Fee, 1980-2008 Devin Fergus 5. The Widening Racial Wealth Gap: Why Wealth is Not Color Blind Thomas Shapiro, Tatjana Meschede, and Sam Osoro 6. The Promises and Pitfalls of Homeownership Carolina Reid 7. Setting the Record Straight on Affordable Homeownership Allison Freeman and Janneke Ratcliffe 8. A Behavioral Economics Perspective on Innovations in Savings Programs Piyush Tantia, Shannon White, and Josh Wright 9. Solving the Paradox of High College Expectations: The Role of Childrens Savings Accounts William Elliott III 10. Extending Savings Accounts to Young People: Lessons from Two Decades of Asset Building Terri Friedline 11. Making Tax Time the Financial Management Moment David Rothstein and Rachel Black 12. Foundations of an Asset-Based Social Policy Agenda Reid Cramer 13. Asset Building Research and Policy: Pathways, Progress, and Potential of a Social Innovation Michael Sherraden

Universal and Progressive Child Development Accounts: A Policy Innovation to Reduce Educational Disparity

Child Development Accounts (CDAs) aim to increase college completion rates among disadvantaged youth by helping youth see themselves as “college bound.” This article summarizes findings about the implementation and impacts of universal, progressive CDAs, with emphasis on outcomes for disadvantaged children. Data come from a large randomized experiment. CDAs positively affect ownership of college savings accounts and assets, educational expectations, and other indicators of well-being. Disadvantaged children especially benefit from having a CDA. If CDAs prove to have long-term effects on educational expectations, college preparation, and educational achievement, then a national universal, progressive CDA could reduce educational disparities.