The mission of AEDI is to create and study innovations related to asset development, education, and financial inclusion that result in opportunities across the life course for low-income children and families, in the U.S. and around the globe, for the purposes of climbing out of poverty and up the economic ladder.
In talking about the New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt painted a picture of what economic security should look like in America: “Liberty requires opportunity to make a living—a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.”
Without this opportunity, he continued, “life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.”
This special event will feature strategies for ensuring that all Americans have adequate resources to “live by” and “something to live for.”
Child Development Accounts (CDAs)—also called
Child Savings Accounts (CSAs)—provide assets and
encourage saving and asset building for children.
(See the accompanying document, The Case for a
Nationwide Child Development Account Policy.)
An efficient, trusted, and sustainable system for
delivering CDAs is already being implemented in
some states. A nationwide policy would require
federal funding and changes in policy and practice
to deliver CDAs for all children with a seed deposit
as early as birth.
Research shows that CDAs have positive effects on asset building and healthy child and family development, with greater effects for people of color and low-income households. Asset building over time is the key to these results. Positive effects for children and families occur even before the money is spent for education.
Willliam Elliott and Melinda Lewis
Uses authors' personal stories to illustrate inequities in education system
Features research conducted with a clear public purpose in mind, in order to increase the relevance and applicability of findings to public policy conversations
Considers how research resonates with people's values and how the proposed policy intervention aligns with American ideals
Discusses an opportunity pipeline that begins at or near birth and extends beyond graduation into young adulthood