In 2011, Florida taxpayers claimed a whopping $4.5 billion in federal money that was returned to our state via the EITC. Nearly two million Florida taxpayers received an economic boost averaging $2,260. With a population just over 19 million, this means an estimated 20% of Florida’s citizens were able to take advantage of the EITC last year. This federal support for working families is our government’s main tool in fighting poverty. And yet, many taxpayers are still unaware that the EITC is available to them.
Who is eligible? Among other qualifying factors, you must have:
- Earned income in 2011
- A valid social security number
- No more than $3,100 in investment income
- Joint tax-filing status if you are married
- U.S. Citizenship or Resident Alien status for past year
Income guidelines for 2011 (for Individuals/Married):
- $13,660/$18,740 with no qualifying child
- $36,052/$41,132 with one qualifying child
- $40,964/$46,044 with two qualifying children
- $43,998/$49,078 with three or more qualifying children
You can receive up to:
- $464 with no qualifying child
- $3,094 with one qualifying child
- $5,112 with two qualifying children
- $5,751 with three or more qualifying children
For more information and to check your eligibility, go to www.eitc.irs.gov.
2.15.2012
Making Financial Education Impactful
WorkSquare wants to identify how to make financial education most impactful. Providing educational opportunities for our employees is only valuable insofar as it is the right curriculum, delivered in a way that is convenient, practicable and engaging. For low-income workers, most balancing multiple jobs and family obligations, the immediate opportunity cost of spending hours in a training session is burdensome when the perceived benefits to any training are unclear or, at best, long-term.
So what are the best practices, promising pedagogies, and new innovations in financial education that can conveniently deliver real value for our clients? Well… we’re having trouble identifying them. Our initial search shows a lot more of the same, with web-based versions of the old touted as ‘innovation’. Nevertheless, here is our initial shortlist on orgs and methodologies that we think are pushing the envelope and getting it right.
Jumpstart Coalition
Network of 149 national orgs committed to youth financial education provides a clearinghouse of materials to assist educators on the subject. Yes, this is absolutely the time to reach people and this curriculum should be a requisite for high school graduation. But what can we do when we’re too late? How to effectively access an adult working population?
Financial Entertainment: Video Games
D2D Fund has released five video games in multiple languages to deliver financial literacy education in an entertaining and engaging way. Content is geared for young adults but accessible to all. Check it out here.
Community Games
This past August, Mayor Thomas Menino used the online game “Farm Blitz” to educate teenagers participating in Boston’s Summer Jobs Program on managing personal finances. Winners earned cash prizes, deposited directly into savings accounts. Nebraska Credit Unions sought to stimulate savings with the allure of lottery winnings with their “Save to Win” game offered at nine credit union branches. Depositors opened more than 11,000 accounts and deposited nearly $9 million in savings, often by people with no other savings, in hopes of winning a $25,000 grand prize or dozens of smaller monthly prizes.
Financial Coaching
I was fortunate to be invited to a training on financial coaching for low-income put on by United Way last year with the Santa Fe Community College. Coaching offers a framework in which the participant is empowered to set her own financial goals and make progress toward them, while the coach focus on holding clients accountable in a one-on-one setting and providing relevant educational information as needed. This is the most impactful pedagogy I have seen. Downside? Time- and cost-intensive for participants and providers. Check out “Financial Coaching: A new Approach for Asset Building?”, Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2007.
We are following RAND Corporation’s Financial Literacy Center and others to stay on top of what’s new. If you have other sources or ideas, please send. We have hundreds of low-wage workers in need of your good ideas!
So what are the best practices, promising pedagogies, and new innovations in financial education that can conveniently deliver real value for our clients? Well… we’re having trouble identifying them. Our initial search shows a lot more of the same, with web-based versions of the old touted as ‘innovation’. Nevertheless, here is our initial shortlist on orgs and methodologies that we think are pushing the envelope and getting it right.
Jumpstart Coalition
Network of 149 national orgs committed to youth financial education provides a clearinghouse of materials to assist educators on the subject. Yes, this is absolutely the time to reach people and this curriculum should be a requisite for high school graduation. But what can we do when we’re too late? How to effectively access an adult working population?
Financial Entertainment: Video Games
D2D Fund has released five video games in multiple languages to deliver financial literacy education in an entertaining and engaging way. Content is geared for young adults but accessible to all. Check it out here.
Community Games
This past August, Mayor Thomas Menino used the online game “Farm Blitz” to educate teenagers participating in Boston’s Summer Jobs Program on managing personal finances. Winners earned cash prizes, deposited directly into savings accounts. Nebraska Credit Unions sought to stimulate savings with the allure of lottery winnings with their “Save to Win” game offered at nine credit union branches. Depositors opened more than 11,000 accounts and deposited nearly $9 million in savings, often by people with no other savings, in hopes of winning a $25,000 grand prize or dozens of smaller monthly prizes.
Financial Coaching
I was fortunate to be invited to a training on financial coaching for low-income put on by United Way last year with the Santa Fe Community College. Coaching offers a framework in which the participant is empowered to set her own financial goals and make progress toward them, while the coach focus on holding clients accountable in a one-on-one setting and providing relevant educational information as needed. This is the most impactful pedagogy I have seen. Downside? Time- and cost-intensive for participants and providers. Check out “Financial Coaching: A new Approach for Asset Building?”, Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2007.
We are following RAND Corporation’s Financial Literacy Center and others to stay on top of what’s new. If you have other sources or ideas, please send. We have hundreds of low-wage workers in need of your good ideas!
2.03.2012
Scaling a Social Enterprise? Help please...
Deep dark confessions of a social entrepreneur: Scaling often seems like mission impossible when the required ingredient – standardization – is meant to apply to (1) customers, who – by definition – have non-standard barriers to participation, and (2) operations whose success has required a customized dose of empathy and supportive services to get the job done.
Examples from the world of job placement for the hard-to-employ? Waking up at 3am worried that a skilled Kreyol-speaking Dishwasher scheduled to start a new job at 7am will not be successful if he’s unable to communicate sufficiently with his Spanish-speaking supervisor. Receiving a 6am phone call from an employee who had her wallet stolen last night, explaining that she’s unable to come up with bus fare to get to work unless we can quickly get her a cash advance. These and scores of other everyday scenarios are cause for the frequent forehead slap and lament: “How in the world do we ever scale this???”
Vikram Akula’s A Fistful of Rice had the great insight that scale requires two things – standardization of services and a technology that can enable volume. The first of these means a drastic reduction in the custom-tailoring of solutions that we socially-minded operators like to offer our customers in the name of being helpful. Individualized attention has its place, but McDonald’s did not become McDonald’s by asking customers how they like their burgers cooked. We can’t provide all solutions to all people and need to be ready to quickly refer to other service-providers when a need is outside the scope of our mission. Akula’s second ingredient of scale also requires an intense minimization of variables, lest the technology become so over-complicated that it impedes usability and makes iterative development cost-prohibitive. I’ve made this mistake. Ouch.
As Matthew Forti points out in his Stanford Social Innovation Review blog, Ensuring That ‘Scaling What Works’ Actually Works, much of what makes many social enterprises ‘successful’ are idiosyncratic or qualitative factors that prevent them from scaling cleanly. How to get around this and develop a model that is truly scalable? Please, send ideas…we need them. In the meantime, a few of our best practices and ideas on how we might continue to move toward the goal of scale:
1. Create a financially self-sustaining model that eliminates risk of funder-induced operational and mission creep. As a profitable company, we have few concerns raising capital.
2. Minimize the number of products/services we offer, ideally to ONE. This involves saying “no” and “I’m sorry, we can’t help you” to a lot of people, which most of us are not good at. This is a work in progress.
3. Create partnerships with other service-providers to refer customers quickly and efficiently to other organizations that can address those needs that fall outside our scope (e.g., language training, legal assistance, etc).
4. Find or develop the technology required to provide our one service automatically, remotely, reliably and conveniently, with processes in place to respond quickly to inevitable problems and aberrations.
Examples from the world of job placement for the hard-to-employ? Waking up at 3am worried that a skilled Kreyol-speaking Dishwasher scheduled to start a new job at 7am will not be successful if he’s unable to communicate sufficiently with his Spanish-speaking supervisor. Receiving a 6am phone call from an employee who had her wallet stolen last night, explaining that she’s unable to come up with bus fare to get to work unless we can quickly get her a cash advance. These and scores of other everyday scenarios are cause for the frequent forehead slap and lament: “How in the world do we ever scale this???”
Vikram Akula’s A Fistful of Rice had the great insight that scale requires two things – standardization of services and a technology that can enable volume. The first of these means a drastic reduction in the custom-tailoring of solutions that we socially-minded operators like to offer our customers in the name of being helpful. Individualized attention has its place, but McDonald’s did not become McDonald’s by asking customers how they like their burgers cooked. We can’t provide all solutions to all people and need to be ready to quickly refer to other service-providers when a need is outside the scope of our mission. Akula’s second ingredient of scale also requires an intense minimization of variables, lest the technology become so over-complicated that it impedes usability and makes iterative development cost-prohibitive. I’ve made this mistake. Ouch.
As Matthew Forti points out in his Stanford Social Innovation Review blog, Ensuring That ‘Scaling What Works’ Actually Works, much of what makes many social enterprises ‘successful’ are idiosyncratic or qualitative factors that prevent them from scaling cleanly. How to get around this and develop a model that is truly scalable? Please, send ideas…we need them. In the meantime, a few of our best practices and ideas on how we might continue to move toward the goal of scale:
1. Create a financially self-sustaining model that eliminates risk of funder-induced operational and mission creep. As a profitable company, we have few concerns raising capital.
2. Minimize the number of products/services we offer, ideally to ONE. This involves saying “no” and “I’m sorry, we can’t help you” to a lot of people, which most of us are not good at. This is a work in progress.
3. Create partnerships with other service-providers to refer customers quickly and efficiently to other organizations that can address those needs that fall outside our scope (e.g., language training, legal assistance, etc).
4. Find or develop the technology required to provide our one service automatically, remotely, reliably and conveniently, with processes in place to respond quickly to inevitable problems and aberrations.
9.20.2011
Exploring Job Creation in Haiti...
The Vanessas (Alix and Bartram) hopped AirFrance 3989 to Port-au-
Prince last month in order to explore opportunities for job creation and economic development in Haiti. We were lucky enough to have a series of meetings with hotel and internet entrepreneurs, USAID and NGO workers, and leaders of the country’s largest microfinance organization and farmers’ cooperatives.
With reconstruction dollars just beginning to trickle in (18 months after the earthquake), many of the capital’s streets are still consumed with rubble, while parks and parking lots overflow with USAID tents that provide meager shelter for hundreds of thousands of people. Meanwhile, the government remains largely anemic, without income or infrastructure necessary to provide basic services including schools, health services, even trash collection. It is a challenge.
So where to start? Well… jobs. Moving over half million people out
of tent cities will require that these individuals have sustainable sources of revenue with which they can build or rent shelter elsewhere. And who creates jobs? Businesses. People willing to invest (and risk) time and money in growing enterprises. But here comes the rough part … there is no commercial financing in Haiti. Banks do not lend to business. Instead, companies must bootstrap all growth, using whatever small profits they have to slowly build their business. Under this scenario, economic growth that should take ten years – and juice the fiscal system that needs to be developed in parallel, providing funding for schools, health, infrastructure – will take five times as long, or likely as much as a century. Public investment has no choice but to follow the private sector’s timeline, as redistribution of wealth first requires generating some wealth.
As we drove the winding roads (stopping for some roadside tasso kabrit of course), we passed Wyclef’s entourage of SUVs, en route to a new hotel he is rumored to be building in beautiful Jacmel. I can think of no greater form of patriotism than private sector investment at this moment. Base of Pyramid Enterprises (WorkSquare’s parent company) now has the challenge of figuring out how to provide the resources and incentives for more Haitian entrepreneurs to do the same. Pou yon Ayiti pi bel.
Prince last month in order to explore opportunities for job creation and economic development in Haiti. We were lucky enough to have a series of meetings with hotel and internet entrepreneurs, USAID and NGO workers, and leaders of the country’s largest microfinance organization and farmers’ cooperatives.With reconstruction dollars just beginning to trickle in (18 months after the earthquake), many of the capital’s streets are still consumed with rubble, while parks and parking lots overflow with USAID tents that provide meager shelter for hundreds of thousands of people. Meanwhile, the government remains largely anemic, without income or infrastructure necessary to provide basic services including schools, health services, even trash collection. It is a challenge.
So where to start? Well… jobs. Moving over half million people out
of tent cities will require that these individuals have sustainable sources of revenue with which they can build or rent shelter elsewhere. And who creates jobs? Businesses. People willing to invest (and risk) time and money in growing enterprises. But here comes the rough part … there is no commercial financing in Haiti. Banks do not lend to business. Instead, companies must bootstrap all growth, using whatever small profits they have to slowly build their business. Under this scenario, economic growth that should take ten years – and juice the fiscal system that needs to be developed in parallel, providing funding for schools, health, infrastructure – will take five times as long, or likely as much as a century. Public investment has no choice but to follow the private sector’s timeline, as redistribution of wealth first requires generating some wealth.
As we drove the winding roads (stopping for some roadside tasso kabrit of course), we passed Wyclef’s entourage of SUVs, en route to a new hotel he is rumored to be building in beautiful Jacmel. I can think of no greater form of patriotism than private sector investment at this moment. Base of Pyramid Enterprises (WorkSquare’s parent company) now has the challenge of figuring out how to provide the resources and incentives for more Haitian entrepreneurs to do the same. Pou yon Ayiti pi bel.
9.19.2011
Do Your Employees Need New "Ways to Work"?
Forget the bus pass, the transit delays, the Metromover’s midnight curfew, the inability to recruit workers when your company is off Miami-Dade’s challenged public transportation grid...
This month, South Florida Urban Ministries launched a local affiliate of the national “Ways to Work” program. Ways to Work, originally started in Minneapolis in the mid-1980s, is now a national not-for-profit that has provided $50 million in auto loans to over 27,000 low-income working families. Employees able to access these loans – and who complete budgeting and other financial training as part of the process – report important increases in workplace advancement while decreasing tardiness and absenteeism. What a win-win.
Check out WaystoWork.org for more information and click here for eligibility requirements. The program is specifically designed for individuals with poor credit history, relying on a volunteer panel of loan officers who interview applicants to establish character and credit-worthiness. Kudos to the SFLUM team for bringing this much-needed program to South Florida!
This month, South Florida Urban Ministries launched a local affiliate of the national “Ways to Work” program. Ways to Work, originally started in Minneapolis in the mid-1980s, is now a national not-for-profit that has provided $50 million in auto loans to over 27,000 low-income working families. Employees able to access these loans – and who complete budgeting and other financial training as part of the process – report important increases in workplace advancement while decreasing tardiness and absenteeism. What a win-win.
Check out WaystoWork.org for more information and click here for eligibility requirements. The program is specifically designed for individuals with poor credit history, relying on a volunteer panel of loan officers who interview applicants to establish character and credit-worthiness. Kudos to the SFLUM team for bringing this much-needed program to South Florida!
5.02.2011
Reflections on Green Job Training
WorkSquare was invited to participate in a conference last week in Birmingham, Alabama on developing green job training programs for low-income workers. The conference was kindly put on by Wider Opportunities for Women and sponsored by the Ms. Foundation for Women.
I attended as a skeptic... with a not-so-small part of me wanting oh-so-much to believe in this... and then watched my skepticism grow. Reflections as follows. Dissent is welcome and encouraged.
1. Few if any of these training programs are demand-driven (e.g., designed in response to the direct hiring needs of real employers). Until employers state a need for a specific position and an inability to find that skill-set, training programs will continue to produce unemployable graduates. It is a waste of time and resources, not to mention a wild source of frustration, to train individuals for positions that do not exist. The millions of Recovery Act dollars that were wasted in misguided training programs is offensive, most of all to the low-income individuals who spent their time participating. If you don't believe me, I have several partipants I can gladly introduce you to.
2. In markets that DO show demand for green skills, this demand is still reliant on subsidies. Weatherization and solar panel installation are promising services given that consumers can finance large up-front expenditures and capture return on investment in the form of lower energy costs. That said, two significant risks still exists. Firstly, if subsidies disappear, jobs will go with them. Second, service providers noted that the need for consumer education was immense and well beyond expectations. This continued need to educate consumers on (1) the environmental importance of the product/service, (2) the projected financial benefit, and (3) how to apply for and receive a tax credit in a no doubt bureaucratic process, all create additional marketing and administrative costs that would be prohibitive in most business models.
3. All green training programs emphasized the importance of work-readiness skills as a precursor to industry-specific training. This strengthened my belief that education and training dollars should be spent on basic work readiness long before specific skill training. For every one employee who may be terminated for his or her lack of deft skill in solar panel installation, one hundred others are terminated for inability to get to work on time, find adequate childcare, or manage workplace conflict appropriately. Employers are willing to train good employees with industry-specific skills...but bad employees -- skilled or otherwise -- are useless.
4. Post-training placement remains a huge obstacle and bottleneck -- trainers struggle to connect with employers. Many of the organizations providing green job training (CBOs, social service orgs, worker rights orgs, etc.) reported much difficulty in reaching employers and convincing them to hire graduates. Given this challenge, it was particularly noteworthy that there was next to no private-sector representation in the entire conference (I saw one representative from a for-profit construction general contractor). If we're trying to sell to these people, wouldn't it make sense to get their opinion? Several organizations have employer councils, which is a step in the right direction, but the overall dialogue lacks the much-needed input of private-sector employers.
We are sadly still a long way off from making this an effective workforce development strategy, much less a tool in spurring current job creation.
I attended as a skeptic... with a not-so-small part of me wanting oh-so-much to believe in this... and then watched my skepticism grow. Reflections as follows. Dissent is welcome and encouraged.
1. Few if any of these training programs are demand-driven (e.g., designed in response to the direct hiring needs of real employers). Until employers state a need for a specific position and an inability to find that skill-set, training programs will continue to produce unemployable graduates. It is a waste of time and resources, not to mention a wild source of frustration, to train individuals for positions that do not exist. The millions of Recovery Act dollars that were wasted in misguided training programs is offensive, most of all to the low-income individuals who spent their time participating. If you don't believe me, I have several partipants I can gladly introduce you to.
2. In markets that DO show demand for green skills, this demand is still reliant on subsidies. Weatherization and solar panel installation are promising services given that consumers can finance large up-front expenditures and capture return on investment in the form of lower energy costs. That said, two significant risks still exists. Firstly, if subsidies disappear, jobs will go with them. Second, service providers noted that the need for consumer education was immense and well beyond expectations. This continued need to educate consumers on (1) the environmental importance of the product/service, (2) the projected financial benefit, and (3) how to apply for and receive a tax credit in a no doubt bureaucratic process, all create additional marketing and administrative costs that would be prohibitive in most business models.
3. All green training programs emphasized the importance of work-readiness skills as a precursor to industry-specific training. This strengthened my belief that education and training dollars should be spent on basic work readiness long before specific skill training. For every one employee who may be terminated for his or her lack of deft skill in solar panel installation, one hundred others are terminated for inability to get to work on time, find adequate childcare, or manage workplace conflict appropriately. Employers are willing to train good employees with industry-specific skills...but bad employees -- skilled or otherwise -- are useless.
4. Post-training placement remains a huge obstacle and bottleneck -- trainers struggle to connect with employers. Many of the organizations providing green job training (CBOs, social service orgs, worker rights orgs, etc.) reported much difficulty in reaching employers and convincing them to hire graduates. Given this challenge, it was particularly noteworthy that there was next to no private-sector representation in the entire conference (I saw one representative from a for-profit construction general contractor). If we're trying to sell to these people, wouldn't it make sense to get their opinion? Several organizations have employer councils, which is a step in the right direction, but the overall dialogue lacks the much-needed input of private-sector employers.
We are sadly still a long way off from making this an effective workforce development strategy, much less a tool in spurring current job creation.
9.20.2010
Dear Obama...Why Small Businesses Aren't Hiring
Pundits and politicians alike (well, at least half of the politicians) have drilled down to a key word to explain the continued lag in our nation's unemployment.... UNCERTAINTY. Add my name to the long list of hundreds of thousands of small business-owners who have not wanted to hire in the past several months due to uncertainty.
Uncertainty... regarding payroll taxes attributable to a broken unemployment insurance system. Our payroll cost for SUTA (state unemployment tax) increased 300% in January of this year, raising our payroll costs by more than $20,000 relative to last year. With this additional $20k, we would have been thrilled to hire another employee, but not while we're busy subsidizing Florida's bankrupt UI system.
Uncertainty... regarding impending changes to the healthcare system and how this will affect payroll costs.
And... drum roll please for my favorite....
Uncertaintly... regarding the very programs that were designed to put people back to work. We have delayed hiring two full-time employees in order to take advantage of the Florida Back to Work program, which draws down federal stimulus funds to subsidize employment of individuals receiving unemployment insurance. This is a great plan.... in theory. After applying to the Florida Back to Work program three months ago, South Florida Workforce -- the agency charged with administering the program -- maintains that our application is 'in process' with no sign of approval prior to the initial expiration of fund availability on September 30th.
Had we -- and doubtless countless other employers -- had been given realistic expectations of how ill-equipped South Florida Workforce was to execute on this federal program, we would have hired *un-subsidized* employees three months ago and started stimulating our local economies. Instead, the poor execution of and uncertainty surrounding this program has delayed employer action -- leaving qualified unemployed individuals on the federal dole -- while employers sit on their hands watching their businesses stagnate rather than grow.
Uncertainty... regarding payroll taxes attributable to a broken unemployment insurance system. Our payroll cost for SUTA (state unemployment tax) increased 300% in January of this year, raising our payroll costs by more than $20,000 relative to last year. With this additional $20k, we would have been thrilled to hire another employee, but not while we're busy subsidizing Florida's bankrupt UI system.
Uncertainty... regarding impending changes to the healthcare system and how this will affect payroll costs.
And... drum roll please for my favorite....
Uncertaintly... regarding the very programs that were designed to put people back to work. We have delayed hiring two full-time employees in order to take advantage of the Florida Back to Work program, which draws down federal stimulus funds to subsidize employment of individuals receiving unemployment insurance. This is a great plan.... in theory. After applying to the Florida Back to Work program three months ago, South Florida Workforce -- the agency charged with administering the program -- maintains that our application is 'in process' with no sign of approval prior to the initial expiration of fund availability on September 30th.
Had we -- and doubtless countless other employers -- had been given realistic expectations of how ill-equipped South Florida Workforce was to execute on this federal program, we would have hired *un-subsidized* employees three months ago and started stimulating our local economies. Instead, the poor execution of and uncertainty surrounding this program has delayed employer action -- leaving qualified unemployed individuals on the federal dole -- while employers sit on their hands watching their businesses stagnate rather than grow.
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