Money Smart Week

America Saves, the organization that coordinates the annual America Saves Week , is working with Money Smart Week on a public awareness campaign that began April 5^th. Money Smart Week seeks to connect providers of financial education to consumers who want to better manage their personal finances.

The need to connect consumers with financial resources is clearly there, as Americans continue to face challenges saving money and paying bills even as the country continues a slow economic recovery. In February, Stephen Brobeck, Executive Director of the Consumer Federation of America, discussed the results of the America Saves’ annual survey saying,

Only about one-third of Americans are living within their means and think they are prepared for the long term financial future. One-third are living within their means but are often not prepared for this long term future. And one-third are struggling to live within their means.”

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2014 CAP Tulsa Free Tax Prep Changes

The 2014 Tax Season will soon be in full swing.  This year there have been changes to CAP Tulsa’s Tax program, and we wanted raise awareness so Tulsans can easily find volunteer tax sites and other resources.

Beginning with the 2014 tax preparation season, CAP Tulsa will no longer offer free tax preparation publicly to Tulsa families. The CAP Tax service will only be available to families participating in other CAP Tulsa services, including its early childhood education program and those who live in the Eugene Field and Kendall Whittier Neighborhoods in conjunction with our Neighborhood Revitalization initiative.

The Tulsa Area United Way has been working with CAP Tulsa to garner interest from other Tulsa agencies, with the long-term goal of building a coalition in Tulsa to continue offering this vital service.

For the 2013 filing season, the United Way has been successful in locating agencies to host tax sites open to the public. Anyone seeking assistance for free tax preparation in 2014 can call the Tulsa Area United Way helpline at 2-1-1 or visit http://www.211oklahomahelpline.org/to find tax websites or options near you.

Anyone who is interested in filing their own tax return online can do so by visiting

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The 2013 Assets and Opportunity Scorecard for Oklahoma

CFED recently released their 2013 Assets and Opportunity Scorecard, subtitled Living on the Edge: Financial Security and Policies to Rebuild American Prosperity. It details how millions of Americans are still just getting by in the wake of the recession, and for Oklahoma the data highlights two or three real problem areas. However, before we take the plunge into a sea of disconcerting data, there are two bright spots. Oklahoma earned the second highest rank among the states in Early Childhood Education participation, an especially relevant figure since CAP Tulsa is an early childhood program provider. The state can also boast of a low unemployment rate, the fifth best in the country. However, the high marks do not carry over to other areas of the Scorecard.

The Assets and Opportunity Scorecard examines the financial security of Americans by assessing states based on 69 different outcome measures. The measures are grouped into five broader categories: 1) Financial Assets and Income, 2) Business and Jobs; 3) Housing and Homeownership; 4) Health Care; and 5) Education. Oklahoma’s general report card, shown below, reflects a mixture of good news and bad news:

• D – Financial Assets & Income
• B – Business & Jobs
• B – Housing & Homeownership
• D – Health Care
• C – Education

For more detail on all of Oklahoma’s results, you can click here. For now, to better understand what these grades mean, we will take a quick look at just two of Oklahoma’s problem areas: 1) Financial Assets and Income; and 2) Health Care.

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Guest Blog: The 2012 Assets and Opportunities Scorecard: Oklahoma Ranks 33rd for Financial Stability of Residents

As part of a new project at CAP, each month we will be featuring a guest blogger from across the agency.  Amy Amatucci, Senior Fund Development Specialist, is our sixth blogger.

Last month the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) and OK Policy co-released the 2012 Assets and Opportunity Scorecard, which shows that more than one in four Oklahoma households are “asset poor.”  The report measures how residents in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia rank in their ability to achieve financial security across 52 measures in five areas, including Financial Assets & Income, Businesses & Jobs, Housing & Homeownership, Health Care, and Education.

Asset poverty is an estimate of financial security that takes into account all of a family’s assets (e.g., house, car, checking and/or savings account) which would be used in the case of lost income. However, this is a conservative way to measure assets, since a home or car would be difficult to liquidate in an emergency. A more accurate measure of a family’s financial resources is “liquid asset poverty” which excludes those assets which are not easily converted into cash. So while 15.6% of Oklahoman residents are income poor, 27% are asset poor and, even more disturbing, 48% of Oklahomans are liquid asset poor.

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2012 CAP Free Tax Prep Information

This post contains outdated information from 2012.  To view up-to-date information for 2014, please visit CAP Tulsa’s website or check out our 2014 Tax post for more resources.

It is that time of year again!  CAP’s free tax preparation program is in full swing at three sites across Tulsa.  Families who make $50,000 or less are eligible for free tax preparation with our IRS-certified volunteers.  In addition to free tax preparation services two sites, Exchange Center and Pine & Lewis BOK, have checking and savings account enrollment available, which will help you receive your refund faster than using a paper check.  Oklahoma’s Promise enrollment and US Savings Bonds are available at all the CAP tax sites listed below.

The appointment line opens January 13, 2012.  To make an appointment call 918-382-3333.

For list of items to bring to your appointment, click here.

2012’s locations and times include: (this is outdated information, for more up-to-date news visit CAP Tulsa’s Website).

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Guest Blog: Budgeting…It’s Personal and for Everyone

As part of a new project at CAP, each month we will be featuring a guest blogger from across the agency.  These guest posts will cover a myriad of topics chosen by the guest blogger.  I am excited to see what everyone produces.  Pat Douthitt, Financial Analyst in CAP’s Accounting Department, is our first guest blogger.

Based on statistics reported by MyBankTracker.com, 61% of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck.  In an annual survey conducted by the American Payroll Association, 71% of workers would find it somewhat difficult to very difficult to meet current financial obligations if their next paycheck were delayed for a week.

How do we overcome this?  Depending on individual situations, the path will vary, however, the basic starting place is budgeting.

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Rent Payments to be Included in Credit Files!

 Lack of access to affordable credit is one difficulty faced by low-income Americans.  Of course, there are those who lack access because of poor financial decision-making and poor credit history, but many others are denied access because they do not have enough credit history.  These people are described as having a thin credit file.  A common misconception about credit is that positive payment history on rent, utilities, and services like cellular phones is included in your credit score.  However, only delinquent payments are reported to the major credit bureaus.  There has been a push to include this type of data in credit files though.  The Political and Economic Research Council and the Brookings Institution Urban Markets Initiative  released a report that describes the impact on consumers if alternative data were included in credit files.  In short, they found that people with limited or no credit history could benefit greatly from the inclusion of this data.  The report also found that the risk profiles of the new entrants in the credit market were very similar to those who already had access to the credit mainstream. 

Based on this and other research, a small segment of the credit industry took action.  PRBC was one of the first credit bureaus to recognize the importance of these types of payments to low-income and thin file credit seekers, so they began to compile this data into an alternative credit file.  RentBureau did the same with positive rent payments.  Now, one major credit bureau is stepping up.  Experian bought RentBureau and will begin to use positive rental payment data to create their general credit files.  Therefore, if your property manager reports to RentBureau and you pay your rent on time, you are improving your credit score.  This is great news for the 1/3 of Americans whose rent is their largest monthly bill.

I think I will go home tonight and ask my property manager if they report to RentBureau.

For more information about this new service, click here.

For more information about research from PERC and the Brookings Institution, click here.

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Fighting the Good Fight

I am sure you have all seen the poverty data released by the US Census Bureau last week.  While the median household income did not change in 2009, the poverty rate rose from 13.2% to 14.3%.  This represents the second statistically significant increase since 2004.  This rate is also at its highest since 1991, but it is still 8 percentage points below the highest poverty rate on record.  The number of people in poverty is at an all time high.  All of this really means one thing, the poverty crisis in America is getting worse.  But, what can be done to fight poverty? 

Here at Community Action Project of Tulsa County (CAP), we believe in an intergenerational approach to fighting poverty.  This means CAP serves both children and parents.  We serve children through Head Start, Early Head Start, and the State Pilot Program at 13 sites across Tulsa County.  While in one of CAP’s Early Childhood Education programs children develop the emotional, cognitive, physical and social skills that will serve them throughout their lives.  Through a partnership with Family and Children Services (F&CS), each family in our early childhood program also has what we call a Family Support Specialist.  F&CS provides family support, parent education, case management, crisis intervention, and family counseling services to families.  All of these services are aimed at making sure kids are prepared to be successful students when they enter kindergarten.

CAP also offers a myriad of services to the parents of children in our early childhood education programs.  Two programs that faithful readers of the blog are already aware of are Healthy Women, Healthy Futures and CareerAdvance.  Healthy Women, Healthy Futures works with mothers to make sure they are as healthy as possible before becoming pregnant because the more healthy the mom, the more likely a child will be born healthy.  CareerAdvance provides parents training in the nurse career pathway and also job readiness skills in hopes of parents obtaining employment that provides a family sustaining wage.  In addition to these programs CAP also supports families who are taking GED and ESL classes through our Adult Learning Initiative.  These programs in addition to programs such as free tax preparation and our First Time Homebuyer program offered through our Financial Services division are meant to strengthen the families and households that influence children away from school. 

We hope that by supporting the development of children and helping connect adults with the skills and services they need, we can help families end the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

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Broke, USA

As I mentioned last week, I am currently looking at approaches to serve the underbanked.  Part of this research is looking at the services that are currently available to individuals without bank accounts.  Many turn to alternative financial services, which is an umbrella term for payday lenders, check cashers, pawn shops, and other similar businesses.  These businesses provide essential financial services like bill pay, money orders, check cashing, short-term loans, money transfers, and remittances, to individuals who cannot access these services through banks or credit unions.  While these services are essential to the underbanked, they can also be very costly.  In some cases the APR on a payday loan can reach 400%!  In addition to the high cost, alternative financial services do not provide the same financial stability as traditional financial service providers.  In other words, they do not move individuals toward long-term asset and wealth building that is necessary to break the cycle of poverty. 

While researching the alternative financial service landscape, I started to wonder how we got to this point.  How did alternative financial services become a $33 billion per year business?  Gary Rivlin’s new book Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. – How the Working Poor Became Big Business provides an interesting look at the rise of these alternative financial services over the last two decades.  Rivlin, a journalist, uses the stories of both consumers and providers to explain how the industry became what it is today.  Other than the personal stories, the one thing  that really made me think was the enormous size of the industry.  It wasn’t just the $33 billion per year; it was the physical size too.  At one point there were more payday lenders in the US than McDonald’s and Burger King stores combined.  That is mind-blowing to me!  To hear an interview with the author click here.

Blogosphere, what are your thoughts on alternative financial services and the underbanked?

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Nuestro Barrio…A Financial Education Telenovela

Yes, you read the title correctly, and no, I am not making this up.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have been up to my ears in research on innovative approaches to serving underbanked communities.  One of those innovative approaches is using sources of entertainment such as video games and television shows to deliver financial education to adults.  Financial education is an important element to moving the underbanked into the financial mainstream because it address the information gap that can act as a barrier to greater use of mainstream financial services.  But financial education is not always delivered in a way that is accessible or engaging to the underbanked community.  Doorways to Dreams (D2D) has launched two financial education video games — Celebrity Calamity and Groove Nation — to reach out to the younger portion of the underbanked community.  The games teach players lessons about credit card usage and the importance budgeting through a series of game related situations.  But, the video game approach still requires the participant to take the initial step of seeking out financial education. 

Nuestro Barrio, on the other hand, targets the Latino portion of the underbanked community that may not seek out financial education for various reasons.  The Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina (CRA-UNC) designed the show in a way that would deliver targeted financial education to the Latino community without individuals having to seek it out from financial institutions or community organizations.  Because the show is distributed through commercial television stations, the show and therefore the information is much more accessible.  Over the course of 13 episodes, viewers learn about homeownership, credit, predatory lending, and financial services through the experiences of Latinos on the show.  When I first read about the program, I wondered if it would really work.  Could viewers attracted to a show for its entertainment value really learn and retain financial literacy from a telenovela?  Research from the Center for Community Capital at UNC suggests it does work.  Researchers found that the show was appealing to viewers, led to increased financial literacy, and induced behavioral change. 

To read the full results of the Nuestro Barrio research from the Center for Community Capital click here.   

To learn more about Nuestro Barrio click here. 

For more information about Doorways to Dreams financial education games click here.

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