Emergency Savings

Tim Shaw, testified before the Kansas House Commerce, Labor and Economic Development Committee for a legislative hearing on HB 2680.

For too many Americans, the answer during an emergency is credit card debt, high-interest loans, or pulling from retirement savings.

In this brief we seek to illuminate policymakers’ opportunities to help make emergency savings both automatic and inclusive.

An emergency savings balance serves as a cushion, limiting the need for households to dip into their retirement savings.

The brief identifies the key barriers to regularly saving and accumulating funds and explores the characteristics of inclusive savings solutions.

The importance of the ongoing act of building, using, and replenishing savings – or “the cycle of savings”-allows people to protect themselves.

Money is power. Power to keep yourself and your family safe, and to make choices with dignity and freedom.

The priority for leaders now must be emergency relief desperately needed to keep families afloat today, but when the economy eventually emerges from its lockdown, families will need more tools to save for future emergencies like this one.

October 15, 2019
Ida Rademacher authored this piece from Bottom Line Personal on employee emergency savings.