Blog
Access Commonwealth’s latest thinking, new ideas, and practical insights from our team of innovators, researchers, and business experts.
Designing Financial Solutions for Elder Caregivers
The Changing Nature of Work: Amplifying the Voice of the Financially Vulnerable Worker
Commonwealth believes that society is more prosperous when everyone has financial security and opportunity, and employment is a primary avenue of opportunity. For many people, the nature of work is in flux. To understand how the financially vulnerable experience the…
Financial Security in the Workplace: Innovative Employer Strategies
The pressures of financial insecurity make it challenging for financially vulnerable workers to do their best work. In our last post and in our recent publication, Financial Security in the Workplace: Making it work for Financially Vulnerable Workers, we discussed the…
Financial Security in the Workplace
Recent years have seen human resource professionals and advocates focus on employee financial wellness. Employees’ financial wellness, the thought goes, is a critical element of their overall wellness and impacts their performance at work. At Commonwealth, we have been exploring…
Using Facebook for Consumer Insights and Awareness
Connecting with financially vulnerable people is critical to our success. With the growth of social media, Commonwealth recently tested Facebook ads as an easy, and potentially cost-effective, way to raise awareness and hear from financially vulnerable people. We piloted this…
Learnings from Boston Saves
CSA programs can provide many benefits to students, families, and communities. Commonwealth believes that they should be designed to meet the needs of the users they seek to benefit. In partnership with the City of Boston, Commonwealth conducted research with…
Building Commonwealth in 2018
2018 is an exciting year of new work at Commonwealth. A few highlights of our year ahead include exploring new financial challenges faced by the financially vulnerable, testing new solutions to those challenges, and collaborating with partners to scale initiatives.…
Tax Refund Splitting Can Help Families Save
From Berkshire County to Barnstable, one thing binds Massachusetts residents together: taxes. Tax time happens predictably every year, and a tax refund is often the largest single payment of money a household receives all year. While much of that refund may be needed for immediate needs like bills…
The CFPB’s Data Sharing Principles
In October, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released “Consumer Protection Principles: Consumer-Authorized Financial Data Sharing and Aggregation.” These principles acknowledge the growth and promise of tools that, with user permission, access and use data from users’ financial accounts. They…
Board Reflections: An Interview with Brigitte Madrian
Board Reflections is a series of interviews with Commonwealth board members discussing their views on emerging financial challenges, innovative solutions, and the future. It is difficult to miss something you never had. And what you call something makes a difference.…
Supplementing Health Expenses with Savings
Commonwealth is committed to building the financial security of financially vulnerable people, and one of the factors that is increasingly contributing to financial insecurity is health expenses – the average annual deductible grew 125% from 2006 to 2015, causing out-of-pocket…