Illinois Asset Building Group - Building Financially Strong Families and Communities

As news spreads across the Capital that Senator Dodd and Senator Corker have reached agreement on a compromise plan for financial regulatory reform, Reid Cramer has a piece in Mother Jones magazine outlining the five critical benchmarks for real financial reform.

Here are the headlines on the five steps he outlines:

1. Fix the big picture, not just individual firms.
2. Separate retail banking from the casinos.
3. It’s the consumer, stupid.
4. Keep it simple.
5. And for heaven’s sake, limit executive pay.

Read the whole thing.

President Obama recently released his proposed FY2011 budget. As this article by CFED outlines, the budget includes funding for several asset building initiatives, including:

Expanding the Saver’s Credit
Increasing retirement security through the workplace
Expanding financial aid for students
Extending the Make Work Pay Tax Credit
Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit

The budget funds several other asset building programs and [...]

United for a Fair Economy, a Boston-based advocacy organization, recently released its annual State of the Dream report, documenting the nature of the national racial wealth divide (appropriately published every Martin Luther King Jr. Day). This year’s report is entitled Drained.
This report first examines the racial employment gap. The recent rise in unemployment has struck [...]

On November 17th, IABG co-hosted, in conjunction with the FDIC, State Treasurer’s Office and the Woodstock Institute, a symposium on the opportunities and challenges in offering alternative small dollar loans through mainstream financial institutions in Illinois.
The need for short term, small dollar credit among low- and moderate-income persons exists, and the present payday lending industry [...]

In December 2009, IABG co-sponsored a webinar on the topic of Universal Voluntary Retirement Accounts (UVRA). Over 100 attendees from across the country listened to national experts-including Dean Baker, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Ted Boettner, Executive Director, West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, Gary Burris, Senior Policy Associate, Economic Opportunity Institute, [...]

The FDIC recently released its 2009 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households. The nationwide survey analyzes the quality and prevalence of unbanked and underbanked households, defined respectively as households in which no one has a checking or savings account and households in which at least one person has a checking or savings account but [...]

The Project on Student Debt recently released their annual survey. In Illinois, a 2009 graduating student carries an average of $20, 102 in student debt, up nearly $1,500 from the 2007  graduating class. Rougly, 58% of Illinois students graduating from a higher education institution carry student debt. Ready more from the report at:
Project on Student [...]

Op-Ed Contributors
The Recession’s Racial Divide
By BARBARA EHRENREICH and DEDRICK MUHAMMAD
Published: September 12, 2009
Copyright: NY Times, 2009
WHAT do you get when you combine the worst economic downturn since the Depression with the first black president? A surge of white racial resentment, loosely disguised as a populist revolt. An article on the Fox News Web site has [...]

25 percent of area families are asset poor, study finds
September 8, 2009
By Mark Lawton
Franklin Park Herald-Journal
Copyright: Pioneer Press, 2009
One in four families in Franklin Park, Northlake and River Grove would be in bad shape if they lost their jobs. That’s according to a study by the Social Impact Research Center (formerly the Heartland Alliance).
The study [...]

A recent Spotlight on Poverty examines the benefits and barriers to homeownership for low- and moderate-income individuals and families.
Click here to read the article