A&O Network Blog

If you are newer to the microfinance field, CRA might not mean anything to you but it is integral to our work. CRA, which stands for the Community Reinvestment Act (1977), is a landmark federal law that requires federally regulated depository institutions (aka national banks) to meet credit needs in all communities where they operate, including low-income communities. One way banks comply with the regulation is by investing in microfinance institutions like Opportunity Fund that specialize in extending credit to low-income borrowers. Those investments and donations are critical for us to serve our clients. To quote our CEO Eric Weaver: “There is no question that we would not have been able to accomplish what we have without a strong, and strongly enforced, Community Reinvestment Act.”

Right now, this law is poised for its second major reform after 35 years of existence. It is time. Given the seismic shifts in the way banks do business (mobile banking, branchless banks etc.) CRA desperately needs to catch up. Along with many partners across the country, Opportunity Fund is pushing for some important (but fairly technical) changes to how CRA is interpreted and enforced. These changes will ensure that banks meet the credit needs of all borrowers in the community, regardless of which side of the tracks those people happen to be from.

Read more or weigh in here

RAISE Texas Webinar - “Integrating Financial Coaching Into Your Organization’s Financial Capability Services”

June 17, 2013 10:30am - 12:00pm CST At the first RAISE Texas webinar on Financial Coaching, participants learned what financial coaching is within the financial capability field and how important this service is to the expanding Texas asset-building field. For this 2nd webinar, we want to take this conversation one step further by bringing in national and local experts to discuss how to integrate financial coaching into your organization’s current services. Join us as we continue our webinar series by registering today. We look forward to having you on the webinar. Please mark your calendars to take part in this important webinar, register today, and spread the word to your colleagues so they too can take part in this key discussion. We would like to thank the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas for hosting this webinar and for supporting RAISE Texas’ efforts in spreading crucial resources, tools, and programs statewide.

Harris County Community Services Department has several funding oppurtunities coming up. Please visit their website at www.csd.hctx.net to find out more.

Legislators should accept federal dollars to pay for comprehensive health care coverage for Ohio’s low-income workers. Approving a budget that expands Medicaid to 153,000 low-income working women, and others, will help mothers and babies get healthier in Ohio. As a result, families, communities, and our economy will grow stronger.

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More than 153,000 Ohio women between the ages of 19 and 44 could gain health insurance coverage if Ohio expands the Medicaid program under health reform.1 Expanding Medicaid to cover these women could help lower Ohio’s infant mortality rate, shockingly high in some counties and among some communities.

When women have health coverage before becoming pregnant and between pregnancies, they are healthier during pregnancy and their babies are more likely to be healthy at birth, research shows.2 Yet thousands of low-income women do not have health coverage in Ohio. Parents with children under 19 and earning less than 90 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible for Medicaid. But parents earning more than 90 percent of poverty – just $17,577 for a family of three – are not. Workers without children are not eligible. These groups will continue to have no access to health care if the Ohio legislature does not expand Medicaid.

Figure 1 shows that people making more than the federal poverty level will get health care with subsidies that allow them to buy health insurance on the exchange in 2014. Without Medicaid expansion, young women entering the labor market at low wages and no benefits, or older women with grown children in the same employment situation, will lack health coverage in spite of national health reform. Their wages are too low to pay for coverage but too high for Medicaid.

At present in Ohio, parents earning 90 percent of poverty are eligible for Medicaid. Annual income at 90 percent of poverty is $13,959 for a single mother with one child in 2013. That mom may be working 34 hours a week at minimum wage, or 27 hours a week – the average full time work week in retail and some service sectors – at between $9 and $10 per hour. More hours or a promotion could eliminate her health coverage. Expanded Medicaid would allow her to seek more hours and higher wages so her family can escape poverty.

Infant mortality is linked to maternal health. The infant mortality rate is calculated as the number of live-born infants per thousand who die within their first year of life. The United States has one of the highest rates among developed nations (6.05 per 1,000 live births in 2011), and Ohio’s infant mortality rate exceeds that of the nation (7.9 per live birth), placing it 11th highest among the states.3 For African Americans it is 15.8 statewide, and even higher in some counties – in Ashtabula County it averaged 39.5 between 2006 and 2010. Ohio has highly prestigious health care institutions, yet in some communities, its infant mortality rates exceed those of developing nations.

Ohio has studied the issue of infant mortality for some time. The Ohio Collaborative on Infant Mortality recognizes the importance of maternal health in reducing infant mortality, as did the Ohio Infant Mortality Task Force before it. Now it’s time to do something about it. By passing Medicaid expansion, the Ohio legislature can give a Mother’s Day gift that can reduce infant mortality.

Legislators should commit to accepting $17.5 billion federal dollars between 2014 and 2022 to pay for comprehensive health care coverage for Ohio’s low-income workers. Approving a budget that expands Medicaid to those 153,000 low-income working women, and others, will help mothers and babies get healthier in Ohio. As a result, families, communities, and our economy will grow stronger.

[1] 2011 American Community Survey. “Low-income” defined as at or under 138 percent of the federal poverty line. Totals may not match sum of individual categories due to rounding.

[2] Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, “Expanding Medicaid will help both low income women and their babies,” April 17, 2013 at www.cbpp.org/files/Fact-Sheet-Impact-on-Women.pdf.

[3] Ohio Office of Health Transformation, “Reducing Infant Mortality,” (updated January 20, 2013) at http://1.usa.gov/16DEK89.

A recent post examines wages through the lens of gender in Mississippi. Differences in wages between men and women are not the only ones that exist within the state. Mississippi’s median wage gap between white and African American workers is larger than the gap between men and women. In 2012, the median wage for white workers registered at $16.97 while the median wage for African American workers was $11.44 – a difference of $5.53.

The table looks at these 2012 wage levels for many Southern states. Wages for white and African American workers are highest in Georgia. The median wage for white workers was lowest in Arkansas and for African American workers was lowest in Mississippi.

The gap between the white and African American wage was largest in Mississippi where the median wage equaled 67% of the white wage last year. The gap means that for every $3 earned by the median or ‘middle’ white worker, an African American worker earns $2. Nationally, the median African American worker earns $3 for every $4 earned by a white worker.

In Mississippi, the median wage for African Americans has hovered around 70% of the median wage for white workers for more than two decades with little change. The trend means that wages for both groups have advanced at the same pace for 20 years, with African American workers not gaining ground on their white counterparts.

The racial wage gap has significant implications for families, children and the state’s greater prosperity. As the differences in wages earned persist, so do differences in household income and poverty levels by race. These trends are not unique to Mississippi, but the data suggest that the differences are more severe than the nation and Southern states. Being intentional about considering these racial and economic divisions in workforce development, asset development, and education policy remain critical for the economic success of the state in the future.

Author: Sarah Welker, Senior Policy Analyst

It has now been more than five years since Mississippi and the nation entered the 2007 recession. Across the country and in our state, men’s wages fell substantially from the mid-2000s to a low in 2010 (see chart). In contrast, women’s wages did not take the same dip as men’s, and in Mississippi estimates show that the median wage for women peaked in 2010. The combination of trends made it seem as though the gender wage gap was narrowing at the end of the last decade. In 2010, the median wage for women equaled 89% of the median wage for men.

However, wage data from 2011 and 2012 raises questions about whether there was a permanent narrowing of the gap, or a temporary effect from the economic constraints of the great recession. After adjusting for inflation, men’s wages are on the increase over the last two years, while women’s have fallen. In 2012, women’s wages equaled 78% of men’s – a lower percentage than 10 years before in 2002. In the U.S., women’s median wages were 82% of men’s in 2012.

For both genders the 2000s showed much slower wage progression than in the 1990s.

How do workers in Mississippi stack up against workers nationally?

In 2012, the median wage for Mississippi’s women ranked 48th among 50 states while the median wage for men ranked 42nd. Women’s wages fall behind Louisiana and Montana, and are $2.30 below the national median. Men’s wages in the state are $1.80 below men’s wages nationally (see chart).

These wage trends suggest that efforts to narrow the separation between men’s and women’s wages are still needed in Mississippi and nationally. Women make up close to half of our state’s labor force and a persistent difference in wages by gender has broad implications for families and the economic security of women.

Up Next: We’ll compare wages between different demographics in Mississippi and the South.

Author: Sarah Welker, Senior Policy Analyst

Foreclosures continue to wreak havoc in Ohio communities, according to data released from the Ohio Supreme Court. In Ohio 70,469 new households filed foreclosures in 2012. This was about the same as in 2011 (a 1.5% decrease) but was more than four times as many foreclosures as we were seeing in the mid 1990s (15,975 in 1995). Foreclosure filings peaked in Ohio in 2009 with 89,061.

Cuyahoga County continues to lead Ohio in the number of new foreclosure filings with 11,427 – a marginal 1 percent decrease from 2011. Smaller counties represented the largest percentage increases from 2011 with Adams (41 percent), Noble (38 percent), and Madison (22 percent) counties seeing the largest one-year growth

“These numbers make it very apparent that the foreclosure crisis continues to haunt Ohio,” said David Rothstein, project director for asset building at Policy Matters Ohio. Policy Matters Ohio will release a detailed analysis of the new foreclosure filings next week and an interactive map shortly.

“Clearly this small decrease in overall foreclosure filings demonstrates the increased need for foreclosure mediation and mortgage counseling,” said Mark Wiseman, director of the Consumer Law Center at Neighborhood Housing Centers of Greater Cleveland.

Housing organizations in Cleveland and Ohio share the concern about foreclosures and are available for comment. These include the Cleveland Housing Network, ESOP, Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Cleveland, and Consumer Law Center and the Ohio Poverty Law Center.

Go to: http://socialcompact.org/cityDNA/index.php?proj=8

"Miami-Dade CityDNA is a web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) that provides demographic, statistical and visualization data of neighborhoods across Miami-Dade County. MDEAT commissioned Social Compact to implement this system in Miami-Dade County in order to create a tool that allows business owners, consultants, academia, public employees, community activists, and others to obtain data such as income, population, and other demographics specific to a particular geographic area. This tool generates charts, reports, and comparisons critical to following trends within a neighborhood’s economy, advocating key issues, and learning of potential impacts to governmental policies. The Miami-Dade City DNA presentation will show users how to access and use the system and promote its usefulness by illustrating examples of its effectiveness in the community."

CAASNM received a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to explore the feasibility of scaling asset building in rural Doña Ana County. After over a year of work from the amazing CAASNM Kellogg Team, the study was submitted to the Foundation on October 31, 2012. CAASNM found several relevant factors during our research.

The target population, Doña Ana County, has a demonstrated need for asset building. The state of New Mexico is considered an economically-depressed area by virtually all national standards. The large number of people on CAASNM's IDA program waiting list and a low 15.7% attrition rate show that its client base wants and can save for asset ownership and will thus support IDA and CDA programs. The feedback gathered from phone interviews and a focus group session among former and new participants confirms that CAASNM's clients built strong saving habits and developed the capacity for long term saving. Approximately 66% of former participants surveyed are still saving on a regular basis and close to 90% keep a monthly budget. Eight-seven (87) percent of respondents have not missed any utility or mortgage payments, 100% of savers who bought a home are still living there and 93% of businesses started under the IDA program are still in business. The tangible social and economic impact of CAASNM's IDA program, strong advocacy for IDAs and the support of the community and partners also attest to this.

From 2007 to 2011 there were 216 participants enrolled in the program. During that time period, 34 of the participants either dropped out of the program or were dropped by CAASNM. Fifty-six of the participants are still enrolled and 126 have cashed out. Of the 126 participants who have cashed out of the program, 50 purchased a new home, 43 either expanded or started a new business and 33 extended their education.

CAASNM worked with the Arrowhead Center to conduct an Economic Impact Study. Here are the highlights:

• Home purchases by IDA participants from 2008-2011 generated a total employment of 28.9 jobs, labor income of over $975,000, and value added of more than $1.5 million.
• Educational expenditures by IDA participants generated a total 5 jobs, labor income of over $239,000 and value added of almost $300,000.
• From 2007 to 2011, 43 individuals created IDAs for the purpose of starting a new business or expanding an existing business. The majority of participants were female (54.8%), 87.1% were between the ages of 24 and 54, 46.9% were either single or a single parent, 32.6% had a high school diploma (or GED) or less education, and 57.1% declared their ethnicity as Hispanic.
• Participants used their IDA funds for the expansion of 19 businesses and the creation of 13 new businesses.

We have a new cohort of teen IDA participants ready to go for Summer and will start a pilot program in the very near future for children under 12.

If you would like to receive a copy of the full report and the economic impact study, please contact Rodolfo Acosta at acostar@caasnm.org or Martha Toltecatl at toltecatlm@caasnm.org.

Ms. Jennifer Vuich moved from New York to Macclenny Fl. in May, 2012. A single parent with twins, she was struggling without transportation, and having a difficult time finding employment.

At the Northeast Florida Community Action Agency in Baker County’s orientation for electric assistance, she found out about the Real$ense Prosperity Campaign. Ms. Vuich had not filed her taxes in the prior year due to moving and she did not have her appropriate W2(s). The Baker county NFCAA staff worked with her to call her prior employer and a W2 was sent. In addition to helping her receive her W2, the NFCCA team was able to provide additional assistance by filing her current and prior year tax returns. To her benefit, Ms. Vuich was eligible and received the Earned Income Credit. With the boost in her income, she was able to buy a car, and pay her childcare bill.

A sense of financial freedom came upon Ms. Vuich and she was able to find stable employment. She is very greatful to NFCAA and Real$ense and now she and her family are on the road to financial stability.