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Palgrave Macmillan

A Fragile Balance

Emergency Savings and Liquid Resources for Low-Income Consumers

  • Book
  • © 2015

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Editors:
  1. J. Michael Collins
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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
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  2. Paying for the Unexpected: Making the Case for a New Generation of Strategies to Boost Emergency Savings, Affording Contingencies, and Liquid Resources for Low-Income Families

    • J. Michael Collins
    Pages 1-15

  3. Liquid Savings Patterns and Credit Usage among the Poor

    • Leah Gjertson
    Pages 17-37

  4. Upside Down: The Failure of Federal Tax Policies to Support Emergency Savings

    • Ezra Levin
    Pages 39-53

  5. Save at Home: Building Emergency Savings One Mortgage Payment at a Time

    • Stephanie Moulton, Anya Samek, Cäzilia Loibl
    Pages 55-74

  6. The SaveUSA Coalition: Using Behavioral Economics to Build Unrestricted Savings at Tax Time

    • Jonathan Mintz
    Pages 75-86

  7. Refund to Savings: Creating Contingency Savings at Tax Time

    • Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Krista Comer, Blair Russell, Clinton Key, Dana Perantie, Dan Ariely
    Pages 87-106

  8. Enhancing Financial Capability: TANF Bank Accounts

    • Karan Gill, Dana Mills, Margaret McKenna
    Pages 107-123

  9. Building Emergency Savings through “Impulse Saving”

    • Kim Manturuk, Jessica Dorrance, Jayson Halladay
    Pages 125-140

  10. Prosperity SmartSave Card: An Incentivized Emergency Savings Strategy

    • Sharon Henderson
    Pages 141-152

  11. Accelerating Savings among Low-Income Households

    • Ed Khashadourian
    Pages 153-174

  12. Start2Save: Helping Working Families Meet Unexpected Expenses and Opportunities

    • Ingrid Holguin
    Pages 175-191

  13. Incorporating Savings into the Debt Management Plan

    • Karen Heisler, Seth Lutter
    Pages 193-200

  14. Who Said Pigs Can’t Fly? A Learner- Centered Approach to Emergency Savings

    • Sonya Caesar
    Pages 201-211

  15. Epilogue: Emergency Savings as a Central Component of Family Financial Security

    • J. Michael Collins, Thomas Shapiro
    Pages 213-219

  16. Back Matter

    Pages 221-234
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Keywords

About this book

A Fragile Balance examines strategies to promote emergency savings, especially among underserved households. Each chapter is by an expert contributor and proposes an innovative financial product or service designed to bolster emergency savings among low-asset families. This collection also offers readers insights into the role of emergency savings and mechanisms to facilitate savings behaviors, and raises critical questions of the scale, institutional capacity, sustainability, accessibility, and effectiveness of existing programs.

Reviews

“A Fragile Balance is a must-read for individuals working with low-income consumers. … this book provided a nice summary of the research to date on saving initiatives for low to moderate income households. … The book is especially beneficial to community organizations wanting to help grow the emergency savings of low to moderate income households. … I highly recommend this book for anyone working with low to moderate income households!” (Sonya L. Britt, Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Vol. 37, 2016)

About the authors

Dan Ariely, Duke University, USA Sonya Caesar, Community College of Baltimore County, USA Krista Comer, Washington University in St. Louis, USA Jessica Dorrance, University of North Carolina, USA Karan Gill, King County Council, WA, USA Leah Gjertson, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Washington University in St. Louis, USA Jayson Halladay, Piggymojo, USA Karen Heisler, Rural Dynamics Inc., USA Sharon Henderson, Prosperity Works, USA Ingrid Holguin, Opportunity Fund, USA Clinton Key, The Pew Charitable Trusts, USA Ed Khashadourian, Opportunity to Assets, USA Cäzilia Loibl, The Ohio State University, USA Seth Lutter, Rural Dynamics, Inc., USA Kim Manturuk, Duke University, USA Margaret McKenna, ConTEXT, USA Benita Melton, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, USA Dana Mills, The Prosperity Agenda, USA Jonathan Mintz, Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund, USA Stephanie Moulton, The Ohio State University, USA Dana Perantie, Washington University in St. Louis, USA Blair Russell, Center for Social Development, USA Anya Samak, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA Thomas Shapiro, Brandeis University, USA

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