Austin faces challenges in creating a community where all children and families have the opportunity to succeed. Social mobility in the U.S. is significantly lower than in most developed countries (about 8% compared to 11% in Denmark and 13% in Canada) (Corak, 2013) and in Austin we’re behind two-thirds of metro areas in the U.S in economic mobility. To extend opportunities to all kids regardless of zip code, we need to look at how we can help children and parents, together. That’s why United Way for Greater Austin (UWATX) and our partners are diving head first into cultivating 2-Gen programming in Austin. “2-Gen” refers to two generations. It’s a paradigm for the coordinated approach to services, policies and systems that addresses the needs of low-to-moderate income children and their parents. In Austin there are individual programs addressing parents’ economic opportunities from workforce to post-secondary education, children’s education and especially high quality early childhood education, and the wrap-around support to make the impact lasting, but few have put them together in an intentional, intensive, coordinated way, yet. We want to impact families of all kinds, but we know that families with young kids are uniquely poised to benefit from 2-Gen interventions. Research shows that increases in a parent’s education or income during the first few years of a child’s life have a powerful effect on a child’s development (Chase-Lansdale & Brooks-Gunn, 2014; Kaushal, 2014; Sommer et al., 2012). In addition, high quality early childhood education programs provide a safe, nurturing place […]
Read MoreTexas Ranks 41st in Assets & Opportunity
The 2016 CFED Assets & Opportunity Scorecard was recently released. CFED is the Corporation For Enterprise Development, an organization that works to create pathways for financial security and opportunity on a local, state and federal level. The Assets & Opportunity Scorecard ranks each state’s residents on five categories: financial assets and income, businesses and jobs, housing and home ownership, health care and education. Within each category are multiple subcategories, such as banking, net income, unemployment rate, low-wage jobs, foreclosure rates and more. Here are a few highlights from this year’s Texas scorecard; to read rankings, 1st is better in terms of economic opportunities for residents while 51st is worst (District of Columbia included as a state in survey): Financial Assets and Income Unbanked and underbanked households 10.4% of Texas households are unbanked while 27.4% are underbanked. “Unbanked” means a household does not have a checking or savings account, while “underbanked” households may have accounts but still rely on payday loans, pawn shops or money orders to get the money they need when they need it. Nationwide, 7.7% of households are unbanked while 20% are underbanked; this puts Texas ranking 41st in unbanked households and 50th in underbanked households–nearly the worst in the nation. Income poverty rate The income poverty rate is the number of households living below the federal poverty threshold. 15.7% of Texas households live in poverty, putting the state in 37th place. The average in the U.S. is 14.5%. Businesses and Jobs Low-wage jobs The low-wage jobs rating measures the number […]
Read MoreSavings Program Pilot Shows Positive Results
Did you know that one-third of Austin residents are classified as low-income? United Way for Greater Austin’s Financial Stability program helps those who are struggling get the guidance they need through three targeted core strategies: learning, saving and thriving. We recognize that in order to create community-wide changes, individuals and families struggling to become financially stable need the help and support of agencies, social workers and volunteers. The national Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) supports UWATX’s Financial Stability program and sought to develop a workplace-based savings program for low-wage employees. The savings program helps them save a portion of their paychecks through direct deposit through their employer. UWATX partnered with Open Door Preschools to implement a pilot of this workplace-based savings program and then worked with consultants from OpportunityTexas and Raise Texas to help evaluate the program. The goals of the pilot program were to get employees to sign up for a savings account if they did not have one and to also sign up for direct deposit. Although the savings program is still ongoing at Open Door Preschools, the pilot phase was eight weeks long and had three components aimed to decrease barriers to signing up: 1) Employees were prepared – Employees initially learned about the savings program through an email from their executive director. The email included information on what the employees needed to bring to prepare for the meeting. 2) Employees attended a facilitated meeting – Through a facilitated kickoff meeting at each preschool location, the executive director gave employees an opportunity […]
Read MoreTexas Mutual Donates Bikes to Middle School Students
As students and their families filled the Decker Middle School cafeteria last Thursday for an end-of-camp celebratory dinner, the camp’s English teacher welcomed families by giving a speech about the enduring memories of his summers spent at his Boy Scouts camp. The events that followed left our campers with their own bank of fond memories of a summer spent learning, building new skills and making new friends. Throughout the course of the night, students presented their summer work to their peers and families, showed younger siblings the collages they made and the personal stories they recorded, and stepped forward to receive awards and recognition for their hard work and leadership. Awards given to the students included the “Change Maker Award,” “Force for Good Award” and “Spirit of Service Award.” The final and most coveted award of the night carried much anticipation; students worked for weeks on creative projects for the chance to win a brand new bike. Texas Mutual Insurance Co. built 14 new bikes to give away to selected students at Decker, complete with encouraging cards, helmets and locks, all to support the summer learning initiatives of UWATX and the students who made the choice to return to school during the summer to continue their education. At Decker Middle School, camp staff saw the bike giveaway as an opportunity for the students to display their leadership and creativity by opting in to a bike contest. Students could either give an oral presentation, draw a picture or write an essay […]
Read MoreFree Summer Meals for Kids
Summer vacation is a time that most children look forward to, but summer can also mean something different for the children who rely on school in order to receive regular meals. Because of this, the summer break can be detrimental to low-income children. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Texas is one of the top thirteen states to receive intensive technical assistance to expand the reach of summer meal programs. This is because Texas is currently experiencing high levels of rural/urban food insecurity and reduced program participation. Over 23 million children rely on free and reduced-price meals provided by National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs throughout the school year. However, only a small portion–3.8 million–participates in the USDA’s Summer Food Service Program. By creating the Summer Food Service Program, the USDA hopes to minimize this gap in order to ensure that children are receiving the meals they need. Fortunately, there are various locations in the Austin community where eligible children and teens ages 18 and below can find facilities that can provide them with free meals while school is out of session. The Summer Meal Site Finder is a mapping tool provided by the USDA that shows local sites that provide meals through the Summer Food Service Program. Distance, days of operation, times and the types of meals being served are some of the details provided by the finder tool. Every day parents, teachers and educational staff members worry for the children that do not have […]
Read MoreUpward Mobility in Austin
Last month, the New York Times published an article titled “An Atlas of Upward Mobility Shows Paths Out of Poverty.” The article details a recent study that finds that some children living in poverty have a better chance of escaping poverty as adults than their counterparts living in similar situations in other cities with smaller chances of upward mobility. Essentially, growing up in poverty does not mean a child will stay poor; much depends on where they grow up. The article lists our own hometown, Austin, as one of the cities where low-income children face the worst odds–meaning they have a small chance of living above the poverty line, even as adults. In fact, a child who grows up in Travis County will earn 8% less as an adult than if they had grown up in a city with an average chance of upward mobility. Other cities on this list are Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Orlando, West Palm Beach, Tampa, the Bronx and low-income parts of Manhattan. It also highlights Baltimore as the city with the worst chance of upward mobility. The study, titled “The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility,” was authored by two Harvard professors. They analyzed more than five million children who moved over a 16 year timeframe. The study found that the younger a child moves from a neighborhood with bad upward mobility to a neighborhood with better upward mobility, the higher the chance they will rise out of poverty as an adult. Additionally, the […]
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