February 2019 Newsletter
RAISE Texas News
Presentations Available from the RAISE Texas 10th Anniversary Summit
Thank you to everyone who attended our RAISE Texas 10th Anniversary Summit held on December 5-6, 2018 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. We were thrilled to have all of you there to celebrate 10 years of RAISE Texas with us! We want to let everyone know that the presentations from the Summit are up on the event webpage. Click here to access the presentations.
Last Call to Join Our Prize-Linked Savings Working Group
We appreciate all of you that have already reached out to join our working group to move prize-linked savings efforts forward in Texas. RAISE Texas is creating a working group to advance prize-linked savings in Texas. Our initial work will include working with CU Solutions Group (CUSG) to help publicize “Save to Win”, as well as looking for opportunities to reach a large number of credit unions and banks with information about this program and others to encourage prize-linked savings accounts be offered throughout the state. We also hope to work with local leaders that are interested in developing outreach campaigns in their local area to increase the savings rate for their target population. We decided to extend the opportunity to join so email Lauren by February 15 at Lgates@raisetexas.org if you would like to be a part.Texas News
ALICE Texas Report Released By United Ways
United Ways of Texas recently released a new report, ALICE: A Study of Financial Hardship in Texas. ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed and it represents the growing number of individuals and families who are working in Texas, but are unable to afford the basic necessities of housing, food, child care, health care, and transportation. The report shows that 29 percent of Texas families are ALICE. When combined with households that fall below the federal poverty line, this means that 42 percent of Texas families do not earn enough money to meet the Texas ALICE Household Survival Budget, a conservative estimate of monthly expenses for housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, basic technology and taxes. The ALICE data is available as a full report, budgets by County, and data by county.
Time to Track Important Asset Building Bills in TexasTexas’ 86th Legislative Session began on January 8, 2019. RAISE Texas and its partners will be closely monitoring bills that will affect the asset-building field in Texas. Starting later this month, we will begin listing bills on our Texas Legislation Page so you can follow the bills through each step of the session. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions about this year’s session. The deadline for the unrestricted filing of bills and joint resolutions is Friday, March 8, 2019.
National News
Texas Ranked 42nd on 2019 Prosperity Now Scorecard
Prosperity Now released the 2019 Scorecard as a premier source for comprehensive data on household financial health. Texas ranks 43rd on the prosperity of its residents compared to the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Some key findings in Texas include:
· 45.9% of Texas households live in liquid asset poverty
· 26.8% of jobs in Texas are low-wage jobs
· 29.6% of adults in Texas have at least a 4-year college degree
· 19.6% of adults in Texas could not see a doctor due to cost
We have a lot of work to do to increase the economic measures for residents in our state and also to push more policies that will increase the financial health of Texas. Click here to see the entire Texas Scorecard, and visit Prosperity Now’s Scorecard page.
Modern-Day Housing Discrimination Looks Like…
Zillow and the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) worked together to survey 10,000 adults in the largest 20 metro areas nationwide about housing discrimination. The Zillow Housing Aspirations Report (ZHAR) shows that roughly one in four adults believe that over the course of their lives, they have been treated differently in their search for housing due to illegal discrimination. Other findings include: younger adults are more likely to say they’ve been treated differently in their search for housing; and, 26 percent of Black respondents said they’ve been treated differently because of race in their search for housing compared to Asians (19 percent), Hispanics (16 percent) and whites (3 percent). Read more about the findings here.