Over 30% of U.S. workers—disproportionately Black and Latinx, and women—earn low to moderate incomes, and face daunting barriers to financial security despite having (sometimes multiple) jobs. This amounts to millions of employees living paycheck to paycheck, perpetuating an intergenerational cycle of financial precarity that sustains and exacerbates wealth gaps in the nation. 

Having workers under financial stress has adverse consequences for employers, including high turnover, employee absence, and lower productivity. In a survey of workers, about a third of financially stressed employees say their finances are a detriment to their productivity. The result is a total cost to firms—and the economy—of up to $250 billion per year (or $3.3 million per year for each employer with 10,000 workers).

Commonwealth’s research has increasingly pointed to the workplace—specifically, workplace benefits—as playing a central role in fostering financial resilience and setting the stage to close the income, racial, and gender wealth gaps. Workplace benefits today meet the needs of people earning higher incomes (e.g., retirement), while frequently excluding the urgent needs of people earning lower incomes who need these benefits most.

Our research aims to build evidence for how offering and improving benefits in the workplace can promote stability, resilience, and wellbeing, setting the stage for both widespread shifts in business practices and policy actions, and ultimately system change in the workplace.

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We are actively engaging with innovators, fintechs, financial services firms, industry experts, employers, and policymakers. Contact our emergency savings team or sign up for our newsletter, if you’d like to explore how your organization can join us in the audacious goal to make wealth possible for all.