Building Financial Capability and Assets in America’s Families

Financial and economic issues underlie many of the problems that bring families to social services. Sometimes these financial difficulties are contributing factors. Other times, they are at the heart of a family’s troubles. Intake interviews and psychosocial assessments in family services often reveal insufficient income and assets, overwhelming debt, lack of emergency savings, limited access to public benefits and social assistance, challenges obtaining a bank account or credit, and worries about their future financial wellbeing. Together with possible physical and mental illness, incarceration, disability, or other challenges, financial stresses can overwhelm families, as well as professionals, organizations, and communities. Despite the many challenges, human service professionals are in a unique position to respond. They work with populations most at risk and have deep understanding of the reality of their clients’ lives. They understand the power of emotions in financial decision-making and can assist families in making optimal decisions. Social workers and other human service professionals understand deeply the importance of financial protections and know that basic financial knowledge and skills, as well as confidence, are essential to household financial management. At the same time, they understand that clients have little control over the larger social forces that shape family financial well-being and that social change is imperative. Human service professionals witness daily the adverse effects of financialization, as finance shapes more and more of life often to the disadvantage of low-income and minoritized groups. They work with many of the more than 7 million people who lack even a basic bank account (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 2020) and with the millions more who have a tenuous relationship with the mainstream financial sector and resort to costly and often-risky predatory financial services, such as payday and car title loans. Human service professionals also have witnessed up close the effects of a global pandemic that has led to losses in jobs, benefits, childcare, and housing. They know that financial distress has been concentrated in poor and minoritized groups (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2020). They observe how difficult it is for families to do more than make ends meet, frustrated at their attempts to build financial security. For many of their clients, 1066464 FISXXX10.1177/10443894211066464Families in SocietySherraden et al. editorial2021