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
Research Conducted over Last 18 Months Highlights Key Role of Recordkeepers in Employee Emergency Savings
Commonwealth and the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association (DCIIA) Retirement Research Center (RRC) partnered on a series of five surveys to understand retirement plan participants’ financial needs, actions, and sentiments during the economic crisis caused by COVID-19. Commonwealth also interviewed…
New Book on The Future of Building Wealth Features Essay Co-authored by Timothy Flacke and Deborah Winshel
In partnership with BlackRock’s Emergency Savings Initiative, authors Timothy Flacke and Deborah Winshel wrote an essay, “Meeting People Where They Are and Laying a Foundation for the Future: Solving America’s Emergency Savings Crisis,” in a new book, The Future of…
Debunking Four Emergency Savings Myths Held by RPAs
The following summarizes Commonwealth and our partner NMG Consulting’s research on retirement plan advisors (RPAs) and highlights a significant opportunity for RPAs to join with recordkeepers and plan sponsors in playing a key role in helping Americans build emergency savings.…
Retirement plans can advance race and gender equity
This blog was originally posted on RPA Convergence. Of the many inequities highlighted through the pandemic and racial reckoning of 2020, none is more pertinent to the retirement industry than the enormous wealth gaps by race, gender and income. After…
Lessons from Three Decades Shaping Retirement Policy
Sometimes dubbed the “Godfather of Auto-enrollment”, no single person has had more influence on retirement policy over the past three decades than Mark Iwry. As a senior official in two administrations, a researcher, and attorney, Mark has helped shape the…
Early Prototype Design on Financial Security Benefits for the Evolving Workforce
Commonwealth has launched The Financial Benefits Project: Developing a Financial Security Toolbox for the Evolving Workforce, a pilot testing the effects of multiple financial benefits on gig workers’ financial security. This research will provide insights into the financial needs of…
Liquid Savings and Expanding Access to 529s to Close the Wealth Gap
Effective financial resources are only as valuable as they are accessible to those who need them. 529 plans, and CSAs broadly, are potentially game-changing tools for families positively impacting their trajectories of opportunity. Yet, low income families currently use 529s…
Emerging Technology for All
As has been the case historically, powerful emerging technologies have the unprecedented potential to shape the future of people’s financial lives, often in ways that will be with us for decades or longer. Next generation technologies such as big data-…
Financial Stress Through a Crisis
Over the past few months, the vaccination rates of the general public have spurred a reopening of businesses and, with that a considerate and continuing drop in national unemployment rates. Despite these positive developments, the financial stress and lasting financial…
How Fintechs Can Help Close the Investing Gap Webinar
Wealth disparities in the US are growing and current investing and wealth building platforms are not meeting the needs of low- to moderate-income people (LMI). According to new research from Commonwealth, 65% of LMI working women are interested in investing, yet…