Making a way out of no way: The importance of improving financial instability among African American kinship care families.

Close attention should be given to the increased reliance on kinship care to provide out-of-home care for vulnerable children and youth because although these families have various strengths, they also frequently face financial instability and experience material hardship. Living in poverty and experiencing material hardship are linked to an array of negative outcomes, including physical and mental health problems, elevated parental stress, and children's academic difficulties and social and behavioral problems. This study examined African American families who are providing informal kinship care with the aim of developing a nuanced understanding of the financial characteristics, challenges, and coping strategies of these families.

Fintech and medical expenses: What social workers should know.

Individuals who cannot afford out of pocket medical expenses may reduce health care use, resulting in poorer health outcomes. To ease the situation, employers turn to financial technology ("fintech") health care credit applications. We examine whether an employer-sponsored credit fintech application (MedPut) helps employees manage medical expenses.

The Impact of Tax Refund Delays on the Experience of Hardship Among Lower-Income Households.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) provides substantial financial support to low-income workers in the USA, yet around a quarter of EITC payments are estimated to be erroneous or fraudulent. Beginning in 2017, the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 requires the Internal Revenue Service to spend additional time processing early EITC claims, delaying the issuance of tax refunds. Leveraging unique data, this paper investigates how delayed tax refunds affected the experience of hardship and unsecured debt among EITC recipients.

Household Spending Patterns and Hardships during COVID-19: A Comparative Study of the U.S. and Israel.

Unlabelled: The combined supply and demand shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic have created the largest consumer behavior shift in recent history, while exposing millions of households to material hardships like food insecurity and housing instability. In this study, we draw on national surveys conducted early in the pandemic to investigate the pandemic's effects on self-reported consumer spending behaviors and experiences of hardship for households in the US and Israel; two countries that are similar in terms of their development but have had divergent experiences with and responses to the pandemic. We also examine the extent to which racial/ethnic/religious minority status and pre-pandemic employment characteristics predict these outcomes.

Why Do Households Lack Emergency Savings? The Role of Financial Capability.

Many U.S. households have insufficient savings to cope with income losses, expenditure shocks, and other financial emergencies, yet little research evidence explains why.