In this episode of the Tangible Hope Podcast, we have Dr. Tom Shapiro. He is a professor at Brandeis University and one of the leading scholars on issues related to closing the racial wealth gap. We discuss his new report Tending Repair: Pigford Famers, Justice, and the Future of Farming and what are some of the consequences that can be drawn from it about the racial wealth gap.

Today we have Amy Castro, an Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the School of Social Policy & Practice and is the Co-Founder and faculty director of the Center for Guaranteed Income Research. She served as the Co-PI of the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration under former Mayor Michael Tubbs which, lead to a proliferation of experimentation with unconditional cash across the U.S. She is the Co-PI of 30 applied cash-transfer studies, further she currently advises more than 20 Mayoral teams, state, and county legislators on unconditional cash research. In today’s episode we discuss with Amy what unconditional cash transfers are, why they are important, and why combining these income policies with asset policies might give us the best opportunity to actually solve poverty.

On this episode we have Mayor Melvin Carter, the first African American mayor of the City of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Mayor Carter and the team at the City of Saint Paul have given a great deal of thought about how to solve poverty and wealth inequality in America. We will talk to him about several income and asset innovations they have been able to implement within the City.

• Read case study on Saint Paul’s CollegeBound program: https://aedi.ssw.umich.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Reports/csa-doorway/csa-doorway-case-study-4.pdf?v=1.0

• Link to CollegeBound Saint Paul, Saint Paul’s CSA program: https://collegeboundstp.com/

• Information on Saint Paul’s medical debt forgiveness program: https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/breaking-the-news/st-paul-city-council-approves-millions-in-relief-residents-experiencing-medical-debt/89-475a1dd7-544a-4ed4-bd11-d60a3f59bd92

• Saint Paul’s experiment testing a Baby Bond like deposit and Guaranteed Income as part of their CSA program, CollegeBound Boost study design: https://aedi.ssw.umich.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Infographics/CollegeBound_Boost_Proposal_7-11-22.pdf?v=1.1

• Results from Saint Paul’s Guaranteed Income Pilot: https://www.stpaul.gov/news/results-saint-paul-guaranteed-income-pilot-show-increased-employment-improved-outlook

In this episode we discuss how Kids RISE in New York City is helping families build assets to pay for college through a novel innovation, called community scholarships. Community Scholarships provide an innovative mechanism to drive additional capital into children's savings accounts. Functionally, Community Scholarships are contributions to groups of NYC Scholarship Accounts through a donation to NYC Kids RISE. NYC Kids RISE deposits 100% of the donations received for Community Scholarships into the NYC Scholarship Accounts of the designated group of students.

Find case study on Kids RISE at https://aedi.ssw.umich.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Reports/csa-doorway/csa-doorway-case-study-5.pdf?v=1.0

Find the full report, Unleashing the Power of Children’s Savings accounts (CSAs): Doorway to Multiple Streams of Assets at https://aedi.ssw.umich.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Reports/csa-doorway/csa-doorway-full-report.pdf?v=1.2

Learn more about Kids RISE at https://nyckidsrise.org/https://aedi.ssw.umich.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Reports/csa-doorway/csa-doorway-case-study-5.pdf?v=1.0

Read more about the results from the NYC Kids RISE Save for College Program pilot phase and hear stories from many partners who helped co-create and build the Program.

The Community Scholarship culminated in a Virtual Celebration in honor of the children of the neighborhood that included a Read-along, College & Career Panel, musical guests and well wishes from elected, faith, school and community leaders.  Read more in Fast Company and the NYCHA Journal.

In this episode we talk with Michael Sherraden, George Warren Brown Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in Saint Louis, founding Director of the Center for Social Development, and author of Assets and the Poor the transformational book in which he dared to suggest poverty was more than lack of income, but also a lack of wealth. We discuss several topics such as what has changed since writing the book, what is the current state of asset building in the US, what are the prospects for major federal policy, and where is asset building research and policy heading in the next decade.

Ray Boshara

New research from the Canada Education Savings Plan suggests that kids with savings in an account are more likely to attend and complete a postsecondary degree and have less debt when they leave than kids who do not.